


Shinigami Phantom

by inukagome15



Category: Bleach, Danny Phantom
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Character, Asexual Kurosaki Ichigo, BAMF Ichigo, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Dimension Travel, Drama, Ensemble Cast, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Minor Character Death, Platonic Relationships, Supernatural Elements, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-05-03 21:19:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5307215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inukagome15/pseuds/inukagome15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a hollow attack sends Danny and his friends to a world that hasn't heard of ghosts before, they know they're sunk. When it turns out that only Danny can see the spirits of this world, he knows he's doomed. And when those spirits start trying to send him to the afterlife, Danny knows he needs to figure this out fast. And then there's Ichigo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is...a _really_ old work that still isn't completed, although I'm occasionally picking away at a rewrite. It was first published back in 2008, and chapters were added up to 2014, I believe. That meant there was a drastic shift in writing style to the point where I could barely stand to look at the earlier chapters and my mischaracterization and shoddy writing. Hence the rewrite.
> 
> The earlier chapters are still not quite up to par, though they're not so bad that I'm rehauling them from scratch. Some scenes are new, and characters are definitely more in character now than they were before. There's less emphasis on crack and more on the subtle type of humor (and occasionally outrageous since it is Kubo). I think it's the first three chapters or so that are still rather rough in quality, although it picks up from there as I've diverged slightly from the original content. Later chapters will likely not face much revising at all, so it's primarily the middle that I'm looking at rehauling.
> 
> And then I'm finishing this. At the moment, the chapter count is at 30, but it's likely I might downsize if I cut stuff out that I deem unnecessary.
> 
> As for why I'm posting it here? 'Cause I like AO3, and this fic was always something I enjoyed doing and now it's one of the better ones that I'm not ashamed of. And we can do with more Bleach fics.
> 
> Time-wise, for Danny Phantom it's set directly before the final aired episode that was Phantom Planet. Bleach is directly after the Soul Society arc but before the Arrancar arc kicks off. And things will not be the same for either universe.

Amity Park’s version of a normal day was…strange to say the least. Normally, several ghost attacks by either Inviso-Bill or another ghost would be considered normal and anything otherwise would be considered strange. However, this day was the most normal day yet as nothing had happened. The birds were singing, the sun shining, and most normal of all, three perfectly average teenagers were taking a perfectly normal walk in the park.

They might’ve looked average to the naked eye, but they had been anything but for the last year. Danny Fenton looked to be scrawny and was usually picked on by bullies, but only four people in the entire world knew that he was also the infamous Danny Phantom. And his two best friends, while human, were anything but ordinary considering they always helped him with ghost fighting.

But since there was absolutely nothing to do this very normal day, all three were extremely bored and had resorted to taking a walk just to avoid homework.

They sat down on a park bench, sprawling across it.

Danny ended up staring at the blue sky for several minutes before he finally asked, “So, what do you guys want to do today?”

“I dunno. Watch a movie?” Tucker pressed a dozen buttons on his PDA.

“Please,” Sam groaned, pressing back into the bench. “We’ve watched all the movies available and ore. Can we do something else?”

“It’s just strange. There hasn’t been a ghost attack for the whole day,” Danny said, staring at a leaf.

“Is that so bad?” Tucker asked. “You were finally able to take that nap and finish your homework.”         

Danny scrunched his nose. “I know, but that’s what worries me. I haven’t even heard a ‘beware.’”

“Please, Danny,” Sam scoffed. “The Box Ghost is nothing but an annoyance.”

“An annoyance that won’t go away, you mean,” Danny said. “I would’ve thought Skulker would show up and start ranting about ‘pelts’ just to keep his record. What’s it been? Two weeks since he started?”

“Maybe he got bored. It was getting repetitive,” Tucker said.

“Don’t start,” Sam said. “He’ll show up in the next five minutes and do it.”          

“Besides, the new version of Doomed is out,” Tucker added.

Sam eyed him disapprovingly. “You mean you pirated it.”

“Did not!”

“Then how do you explain getting it before everyone else?”

“Well—”

Sam sniffed, folding her arms. “I rest my case.”

Danny leaned over to whisper in Tucker’s ear, “How good is it?”

Tucker flashed him a grin. “Really good.”

Sam groaned lightly, looking up at the sky to say to no one at all, “Why me?”

Danny glanced at her, about to respond when a breath of cold air left his mouth in a wisp of blue air. “Why us?” he grumbled, standing up. “Sam, you got a thermos?”

There was no hint of humor left in Sam’s amethyst eyes. “Check.” A thermos appeared in her hand.

Checking to be sure that the coast was clear of any humans, Danny took a breath, spreading his feet. “I’m going ghost!” Black hair turned white, blue eyes turned green, and normal clothes turned into a black and white jumpsuit with a DP symbol on the chest. The bluish-white rings that had instigated the transformation disappeared seconds later.

 “Now”—Danny Phantom flew up—“where’s the ghost?”

“Behind you, Danny!” Sam called.

Danny whirled around to see a monstrous green blob of a ghost appear out of thin air, glaring at him out of red eyes.

“Okay, that has got to be one of the weirdest ghosts I’ve seen,” Danny said. “It doesn’t even have arms!” It suddenly grew two fat arms. “I stand corrected.”

Danny’s hands glowed green as he waited for the other ghost to make the first move. It did within moments, raising one hand and bringing it down to try and slam Danny to the ground. A quick green ecto-beam fired through the hand prevented that, forming a hole that let Danny through before it healed over.

 “Hey, it’s Inviso-Bill!” Danny heard someone shout. A quick glance showed it to be Dash Baxter.

“Out of all the names that I could’ve been stuck with, it had to be Inviso-Bill,” Danny grumbled, dodging another punch by twisting to the side.

“You’re behind the times, Dash,” Danny heard Tucker tell Dash. “It’s Danny Phantom, remember?”

“Shut it, geek!”

“Phantom!” Sam shouted, waving to get his attention. “Try another one of those ghost rays!”  

Darting back one last time to avoid another swipe from the ghost, Danny fired another one, blasting a huge hole in the ghost’s chest. It immediately reformed.

“Oh great.” He turned intangible to let another punch fly through him. “So…ice?” An icy blue glow gathered around his white gloves. Before the other ghost could react, Danny let the ice rip, freezing the entire ghost solid. A quick ecto-ball later and the ghost was shattered into a million pieces of glistening ice.

“Another job done,” Danny said, landing on the ground in front of his friends.

“You’re not going to suck it up?” Sam asked, pointing to the thermos at his side.

“Nah.” Danny looked around at the greenish ice on the ground. “Usually don’t reform after something like that.”

Dash stomped up then. “Hey, why are you hanging out with these losers?”

Danny stiffened, straightening his entire posture. “Sorry, citizen! I’m afraid I have no idea what you are talking about!”

Dash frowned. “Why are you hanging out with them?” He pointed to Sam and Tucker.

“Hey!” Tucker sounded indignant.

“They’re—” Danny cut off upon noticing the ice on the ground begin to shiver. Seconds later every single piece jumped up into the air, vibrating furiously before colliding together to reform the ghost, which was even more furious than before. “Oh great.”

“You really should’ve sucked it in,” Sam said.

“Yeah…I probably should’ve.” Danny took a cautious step back, eyes fixed on the furious ghost. It began to glow an ominous red, baring its teeth at him. “Get back!”

Before anyone could move, an enormous red beam erupted from the ghost’s mouth. Danny barely had enough time to form a green shield around his friends and Dash before the attack hit.

His arms shook under the strain of holding up the shield. He could hear nothing but roaring and there was nothing but red light around him.

“Oh crud!” Tucker yelped, ducking down instinctively.

“It’s…good.” Danny grunted slightly as he spread his feet in an effort to prevent his knees from buckling.

Thankfully the attack subsided several seconds later, allowing him to drop the shield. He turned to Dash. “Get out of here!”

Not needing to be told twice, Dash ran off as fast as he could – which was pretty fast considering he was a football player.

“You okay, Danny?” Sam asked worriedly.

“Fine.” Danny looked back up at the ghost, which was squinting down at him as if it couldn’t believe that he’d survived that attack. He gave it a cheeky wave, adding quietly, “Packed a bit more of a punch than I was expecting.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Tucker asked. “Suck it in!”

Uncapping his thermos, Danny fired up another ice beam, warily watching the ghost as its head seemed to glow in a red light. “That doesn’t look too good.” Freezing the ghost, Danny sucked it in before anything else could happen.

“Okay.” Danny exhaled gustily, capping the thermos. “That’s that.”

“Er…” Tucker didn’t sound so sure.

“Danny,” Sam squeaked.

Danny frowned, not used to hearing his friend sound like that. “What?”

Both his friends pointed up; Danny followed their fingers, heart dropping when he saw it. “Oh crud.”

That explained the red light behind the ghost’s head. It had been building up another attack behind its head, and it was already firing down upon them.

Danny had no time to put up a shield before they were hit by it

When the light disappeared, nothing was left of the three friends. There wasn’t even a crater.

* * *

The tall orange-haired teenager frowned as he stared at the chalkboard. There was a math problem outlined on it, but that wasn’t what was causing his agitation. He was frowning over what had been going on lately.

Kurosaki Ichigo nibbled on his pencil’s eraser as he mulled over the lack of hollows – monsters with masks that eat people’s souls. He would’ve ordinarily been jumping at a lack of hollows to fight, but not without reason. He wasn’t stupid. If hollows weren’t attacking, something else was up.

In fact, there had been no word from anyone lately. Anyone related to his status as a substitute shinigami anyway. Soul Society had been quiet, and so had Aizen.

 “Is something wrong with the board, Kurosaki?” His teacher’s voice distracted him.

“Huh?” Ichigo blinked, pulled out from his thoughts. “No, nothing’s wrong. Just thinking.”

“Must be some thinking if you haven’t even completed one math problem,” the teacher said.

Ichigo looked down at his sheet and saw that he had indeed not completed anything. “Er, right.”

The bell rang then and the teacher assigned them all homework, giving Ichigo a baleful look that didn’t even register a two on the teenager’s scale of important things. No, he had much more important things to worry about.

“Hey, Ishida,” he said to a dark-haired skinny teenager with glasses. “Do you think something’s up?”

“I have also noticed the recent decline of hollow activity,” Ishida Uryuu said. “It doesn’t bode well.”

The broad-shouldered man behind Uryuu grunted. Sado Yasutora – or Chad as Ichigo insisted on calling him – said in a low voice, “Likewise.”

“Kurosaki-kun,” a soft voice said behind Ichigo. The girl who’d spoken his name looked worried. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, nothing, Inoue,” Ichigo said. His face didn’t change – in fact, it was common knowledge that he always wore a scowl.

“We were just discussing the decline of hollow activity,” Ishida said. “There’s been a suspicious lack of it.”

Inoue Orihime smiled. “Maybe they’re on vacation?”

“Uh—” Ichigo scratched the back of his head, trying to think of a good way to phrase his next sentence. He eventually just made a face. “I don’t think they’re the type to take vacations. Besides, it’s getting weird. I haven’t heard anything from Soul Society either.”

 “That might be a good thing,” Ishida said, pushing up his glasses.

“Or it might not.”            

“Speaking of hollows,” Chad said, “I think I sense one’s reiatsu.”

“But my badge hasn’t—”

Ichigo was cut off by a loud obnoxious voice crying, “HOLLOW! HOLLOW!” It came from a badge with a skull’s shape cut into it that was hanging off of Ichigo’s pants. It was flashing yellow.

“Speak of the devil. So there is a hollow. Finally.” Ichigo dashed outside. “Cover for me, will ya?”

He faintly heard Ishida call for him, but ignored him. There was a hollow to take care of, and it was his job.

Slamming the badge against his chest, a faint crackle of blue electricity burst out from it before his spirit body stepped out of his human one. He reached out to stop his physical body from hitting the ground, dragging it to the side to unceremoniously stuff it into a broom closet.

Making sure the door was locked, Ichigo opened a window and jumped out to land on thin air. Checking his badge, he took off running to the north.

A couple of minutes later, he arrived at the source of the commotion, coming to a stop on a building to look down at the hollow on the ground. It was a huge bony thin thing with a really ugly mask.

“You’re an ugly one, aren’t you?” Ichigo said, gripping the hilt of his weapon, which was strapped to his back. The cloth unraveled to become a more manageable length, revealing a black and white zanpakutou called Zangetsu.

The hollow turned towards him, an unearthly shriek splitting the air as it opened its mouth.

Ichigo didn’t flinch, watching coolly as the hollow slowly approached him, shaking the earth with each step.

When the hollow had come close enough, Ichigo hopped off the building and swung his sword down. The hollow dodged at the last second and instead of hitting the mask, Ichigo sliced off the arm.

The hollow roared.

“Heh.” Ichigo grinned, spinning around on one foot as he readied Zangetsu for another attack. “Not bad.”

The hollow reached out with its other arm, and Ichigo dodged it by jumping up high. He again aimed towards the mask, but this time the hollow sprung clear from his strike before Ichigo could even come close.

Ichigo swore and growled. He jumped up again and slashed at the hollow’s knee. This time he made impact, cutting the leg off entirely.

Shrieking in pain, the hollow opened its mouth, a red ball of light forming in the middle of the gaping maw.

“Cero? Oh man!” Ichigo jumped up at the last second, leaving a smoking crater where he had been standing before as the attack hit. “You’re…getting annoying!” He disappeared and reappeared behind the hollow. “Take this!”

Within a second the mask was split into two. The hollow gave out one final roar as its body split into particles and disintegrated into nothing, having been purified.

“Annoying bastard,” Ichigo said. His zanpakutou rested on his back again. Shaking his head once, he muttered, “I better go back to class before my teacher blows a vein.”

He leapt off in the direction of the school.

Back in the crater the hollow’s cero had formed, the dust gradually settled to reveal three figures resting at the bottom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will occasionally come by and plop down another chapter, but at the moment I've only revised 8... So Chapter 9 is still being worked on. All of them are up on FF, but I think they've still got some typos and the like. There should be less of those on this site.


	2. Where Are We?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be back every two days or so with a new chapter until this is caught up with the version over on FF, although this one will be edited some more for typos and weird phrasing.

Danny groaned as he woke up. The last thing he could remember was a blinding flash of red light, pain, and darkness. Blearily opening his eyes, all he could see was dirt. Or rubble, since it looked like broken cement.

Rolling over onto his back, Danny pushed himself to a sitting position, wincing as he noticed that he wasn’t in ghost form anymore. Hopefully no one had been around to see him transform…

Twisting around to sit on his knees, Danny looked around the crater he was at the bottom of. Sam and Tucker were still unconscious, but seemed to be unhurt. There was no one else around, though his sharp hearing could pick up the sounds of people milling at the top of the crater. Surprisingly, no one was peeking down to see what had caused the giant hole.

And Danny had no intention of being around when they began to.

He slid over to Sam and Tucker, shaking them lightly by the shoulders. “Sam? Tucker? Wake up, guys. Come on…”

Sam responded first, groaning before opening her eyes. “Danny?” The word was slightly slurred. “Where are we?”

“Some kind of crater,” Danny said, turning his attention to Tucker. “Dude, seriously. Wake up.”

Sam rolled over onto her stomach. “Your PDA is dead,” she said calmly.

The reaction this garnered was instant. Tucker jolted upright, nearly clocking Danny in the head. His outraged cry was immediately muffled by Danny’s hand.

“Shh!” Danny looked up pointedly.  Once he was sure Tucker would be quiet, he let his hand drop.

Tucker glared at Sam. “That totally wasn’t cool!” he whispered furiously, patting the pocket where his beloved PDA was tucked away.

“Let’s save it for later,” Danny said before Sam could respond. “We need to get out before they start looking.”

Taking hold of his friends’ hands, Danny turned them all invisible before they began to make their way out of the crater. After nearly losing his balance three times, he had them grab hold onto his shirt before they made it to the top unscathed.

When they did, though, they froze. They weren’t in the park they’d been in, nor were they in Amity Park. For one thing, the people looked different. Policemen were circling the crater, speaking into their communicators. Yellow tape prevented the general public from getting any closer. The police cars were black and white, and even the writing looked different from the usual blocky letters.

“This doesn’t look like Amity Park,” Tucker said quietly.

“What? We ended up in China?” Danny frowned, glancing around at their strange surroundings. “This doesn’t make any sense!”

“Maybe the ghost dug the hole to China,” Tucker said.

“That’s not physically possible,” Sam said. “Besides, everything’s still in English.”

“Let’s get outta here.” Grabbing their hands, Danny pulled them out of the crater and pushed them off to the side, ducking under the tape and then weaving through the people until they stood off to the side, just to the periphery of the crowd. Now he let the invisibility drop.

“Everything _is_ in English,” Tucker said, sounding perplexed. “But where are we?”

“New York?” Danny suggested quietly. “There’re vendors on the sidewalks. Then again…” He turned his head, squinting at one vendor. “What exactly is _that_?” He pointed to something that resembled a bunch of fried donuts.

“It looks like fried donuts,” Tucker said.

“At a vendor?”

Sam popped up at that moment, shoving a newspaper into Danny’s hands. “Look at this!” she hissed.

Danny and Tucker glanced down at the ordinary newspaper that seemed to have frazzled their friend.

“‘Broken Sewer Pipe Causes Chaos’?” Danny read in confusion.

Sam rolled her eyes. “Not that!” She yanked it out of his hands and pointed to a spot in a corner. “ _This_!”

Danny and Tucker looked at the spot she pointed out. Then they looked again.

“Karakura Town?” Tucker yelped.

“ _Japan_?” Danny said in an even louder voice. “How did we get to _Japan_?”

“Never mind that! How are we even reading this?” Tucker snatched the newspaper from Sam and flipped through the pages. “It’s all in English!”

“Shh!” Sam checked their surroundings, but saw that no one had noticed anything.

“Sorry for shouting, but it’s a little disturbing to find that we somehow made our way to _Japan_!” Danny whispered furiously. “How does that work out?”

“Are we even in Japan?” Tucker asked dubiously. “As far as I know, the Japanese language has two scripts: kanji and hiragana. _This_ ”—he waved the newspaper—“is plain English. And it’s a local newspaper so that’s not even possible. If it were a national one I’d get it, but this is – for all apparent purposes – a small town.”

“I grabbed the first newspaper I saw,” Sam said, crossing her arms defensively. “They all looked the same. I don’t know any more than you do.”

“But it doesn’t make any _sense_ ,” Tucker groaned. “We were in _Amity Park_ , which is in the _middle_ of the United States. How do we get from there all the way to freakin’ _Japan_? Which is on the _other side_ of the Earth?”

“And they’re all speaking English,” Danny added, pointing back at the crowd they had left at the crater. “Are we hallucinating?”

“Unless we’re all hallucinating the same thing, which is impossible,” Sam denied.

“Maybe I’m hallucinating you telling me this,” Danny grumbled.

“Either you – or we – are hallucinating or we’re not,” Sam said, pursing her lips. “Regardless, it doesn’t matter. We’ll have to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“Maybe it was something in the red light that ghost shot at us,” Tucker mused.

“Last time I checked, Tucker,” Danny said, leaning against a wall, “ghost attacks don’t transport you halfway across the world.” There was a short pause before he muttered, “Although, my dad could change that with a drive in the RV.”

“You can fly us back, right?” Tucker asked his friend.

Danny stared at him incredulously. “A flight across a huge ocean? That’d be straining, even for me.”

Without warning, Danny’s top half became invisible. Alarmed, Sam and Tucker moved to cover him and began to whistle innocently. A few seconds later, he reappeared, looking flustered.

“Oh man! My powers are screwed up.” Danny looked down. “Next thing I know I’ll be phasing through the street.”

“Don’t say that. It won’t happen,” Tucker said. Danny then phased through the street. “Or, maybe not.”

Danny phased back up, scowling. “This is weird.”

“Let’s just try to sort things out, all right?” Sam said reasonably. “We can’t go to the police because we’ll be locked up in an asylum. After all, who’d believe that we were instantaneously transported from the Americas?”

“I would,” Danny said gloomily. His ghost sense went off. “Be right back.” He ran into an alley and a white flash could be seen before his ghostly ego came out. “Anyone see me?”

“Nope. You’re just fine,” Sam said. She rooted through her purple backpack. “Need another thermos?”

Danny pulled one out of that invisible pocket he’d never been able to figure out but was thankful for regardless. “Got it covered. Follow me on foot, all right?”

“It’s not Halloween, dude,” a guy said, passing Danny.

Danny stared at after him before looking back at his friends. “He spoke _English_! This _really_ doesn’t make _any_ sense!”

“It doesn’t matter at the moment!” Sam pointed at the thermos. “You have something to deal with, don’t you?”

Danny sighed and nodded. “You think they’ll panic if I start flying around?”

“A strange white-haired, glowing, teenager in a black and white jumpsuit flying around in broad daylight? I think you’re safe,” Sam said.

“Gee, thanks.” Danny took off.

“You think they’re familiar with ghosts around here?” Tucker asked.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Sam sighed. “Come on; we should go after him.”

Danny was looking around for the ghost when he saw a shadowy figure lurking by a building. A closer look revealed it to be a masked monster.

“Okay, maybe I’m not hallucinating after all,” Danny muttered, inspecting the monster that had apparently set off his ghost sense. “I’ve never seen something like that, and I don’t think hallucinations make up stuff you have no clue about.”

Danny fired off a ghost ray and hit the monster in its huge foot. It roared loudly and the echoing sounds hit Danny, causing him to cover his ears in reflex.

“Dude, one piece of advice: singing lessons,” he said. “Are you even a ghost?”

Danny flew perilously close to it and nearly risked being gored through the shoulder by a horn. He shot another ghost ray at it and scored a hit on the monster’s back. It left a small mark. Danny followed it with a barrage of small ecto-balls.

“Danny!” He turned to see his friends gaping at him. “Why are you attacking thin air?”

“Thin air?” Danny looked back to see the monster get up from the attacks he’d thrown at it. “That’s a monster!”

Sam peered behind him. “What monster? I don’t see anything besides a lot of smoke. You better stop before you get on everybody’s bad side here, too.”

“But there’s a monster!” Danny yelled, frustrated. Unthinkingly, he grabbed the monster by the mask and pulled it down directly in front of his friends’ faces. “Can’t you see it?” The monster snuffled slightly, blinking at Danny perplexedly.

Tucker looked pityingly at his friend. “There’s nothing there, Danny. It’s all right to admit you’re seeing stuff, man.”

“But I’m not!” Danny looked back at the monster, which was beginning to look pretty mad now. “I’m holding it!”

Sam and Tucker shot each other worried looks, evidently thinking Danny was losing it

Extremely frustrated now, he let go of the monster and kicked it in the face before it could move, knocking it straight across the street. That done, he landed on the ground next to his friends, both of whom were blinking at him in stunned surprise.

“Wow, you might wanna get that power under control,” Tucker said, looking at the mess Danny had made by kicking the thing.

“That wasn’t me,” Danny said sulkily, his arms folded across his chest. “I just kicked that stupid monster into a building.”

“But, Danny,” Sam said, “there’s _nothing there._ ”

Danny now shot her a look that read “Are _you_ feeling all right?” “I just kicked a ten foot high monster straight across the street into a building, and you still don’t believe me?”

Tucker rapped his knuckles against Danny’s head. “You might wanna see a doctor.”

Shooting Tucker a glare, Danny huffed in aggravation and took off to take out some more of his frustration on the monster.

“Terrific!” he shouted at it. “Thanks to you, my best friends are now under the impression that I’m insane!” He grunted as he shot one ghost ray after another at it. “Now that that’s done”—he took out the thermos—“I can suck you in.” The monster had absolutely zero time to recover before it was sucked in with a startled yelp.

Putting the thermos away, Danny flew behind a lamppost and transformed back. He casually stepped out, making his way casually into the street and against the flow of people rushing over to see what had happened.    

“Wow, Danny.” Sam sounded vaguely impressed. “I think this is a record for you. You’re already making headlines.”

Danny frowned. “I didn’t attack thin air, all right?” Crossing his arms angrily, he turned his head, looking back at where the monster had been. Something flickered on one of the rooftops, flashing orange and black. Blinking, he looked again only to find that nothing was there. “What was that?”

“What’s what?” Sam looked the way he was looking. “Are you feeling all right?”

“For the last time, yes!” he snapped loudly. He lowered his voice when several people shot him curious looks. “I thought I saw something weird, okay? Nothing strange about that, yeah?”

“Hey, shouldn’t you kids be in school?” a man asked them.

The friends froze in shock for a moment, their brains working in overdrive.

“Our school day ended early,” Sam finally said brightly. “It’s a real mess here, huh? That ghost kid sure did a number.”

Danny shot her a glare.

“Ghost kid?” The man shrugged. “Haven’t seen anything like that. No such thing as ghosts.”

“She’s talking about Inviso-Bill,” Tucker explained. He ignored the looks Sam and Danny shot him at the name. He rambled on, “You know, that kid who haunts a town in America?”

“Er—” After giving Tucker a concerned look, the man wandered off, clearly not wanting anything to do with three seemingly crazy teenagers.

 “They haven’t heard of me,” Danny said quietly. “Or, ghost me anyway.” Now he looked peeved. “What’s up with calling me Inviso-Bill?”

“It’s what most people remember,” Tucker said, shrugging.

“Well, Inviso-Bill or Phantom, these people haven’t heard of ghosts,” Sam said. “Either that, or the guy doesn’t watch the news.”

“If we’re really in Japan, Sam, I don’t think there’ll be news about ghost attacks in Amity Park, USA,” Danny said.

“I think it was broadcast internationally when our town disappeared off the face of the earth when Pariah Dark was running rampant.”

“What are we going to do now, though?” Tucker asked. “We’re stuck in Japan.” He shot a glance at Danny.

Danny put his hands up. “Call me lazy, but I’m not going to fly all _three_ of us back to Amity Park.”

“No problem,” Sam interrupted, grinning as she held up a black wallet. “I’ve got credit cards. We can fly back the regular way.”

“Won’t your parents notice?” Tucker asked.

Sam shrugged. “I can make up some sort of excuse. All we need is a map and the airport and we’re good to go.”

A bad feeling skittered down Danny’s spine. Things were never this easy for them, so why should it be now?

Then again, they did deserve some sort of break, didn’t they?

* * *

Ichigo had been sitting in class when his badge went off. Excusing himself to go to the bathroom much to the chagrin of the teacher – who really should be used to it by now – Ichigo again turned into a shinigami and stuffed his body into a broom closet.

Several minutes later, Ichigo arrived on the scene of the hollow to find a white-haired kid pummeling the hollow to a pulp.

Frowning in confusion, Ichigo didn’t move, simply watching as the kid handed the hollow’s ass to it. The kid wasn’t standing on the air, but instead seemed to be literally flying. His clothes were also weird and the attacks weren’t anything Ichigo had seen before.

Ichigo was absolute crap at kidou and anything else that didn’t involve a zanpakutou, but he’d bet his substitute shinigami badge that there weren’t any kidou spells that looked green. And a soup can definitely wasn’t in a normal shinigami’s arsenal.

He didn’t have any more time to wonder about the strange kid because as soon as the hollow was gone – inside a _soup can_ no less – the kid flitted off behind a lamppost. Ichigo narrowed his eyes as a bluish-white light flashed out from behind the post before a black-haired kid casually walked into view.

This one went on to meet with two other kids and draw them into a conversation.

That…was just odd. Was this kid another shinigami like Ichigo? It wasn’t outside the realm of probability, but Ichigo thought Soul Society would’ve told him if that was the case.

“Huh…” Ichigo exhaled softly, rubbing the back of his head with a hand. There wasn’t anything he could do about it now – not that he knew _what_ he should do anyway – and it wasn’t really any of his business. One less hollow was one less hollow.

And he had school.

The question was if he should tell his friends what he’d seen or keep it on the down low. Experience told him that a secret was better kept with one mouth, but his friends were trustworthy.

Then again, it wasn’t exactly his secret to tell, was it?

Damn it…

* * *

“So, um…” Sam fidgeted, a nervous expression on her face. “We might have a problem…”

“What?” Danny and Tucker asked.

“My credit cards don’t work here.” Sam bit her lip, looking back at the ATM machine she’d been trying to withdraw cash from to pay for a cab or a train ticket. “They keep getting rejected.”

Tucker put his PDA away. “Let me try.”

Ten minutes later, Tucker returned to them with an irritated look. “Nothing.” He pushed the wallet into Sam’s hands. “And I’m not gonna try anything illegal here.”

“Great.” Danny slumped back against the wall. “Now what?”

His friends shared looks and shrugged, their faces pinched in worry.

They were all huddled by the wall of the bank, the ATM about ten feet away. They were still in the middle of Karakura, the town too small to have an airport of its own. They were stuck here unless they could get a cab or a train, but they needed money for that. Without working credit cards, they were stuck.

“I do have some cash on me,” Sam said slowly, leafing through her wallet. “But not enough.”

“Call me crazy,” Tucker said, “but I think we should head to a library.”

“You’re right,” Danny said. “You’re crazy.”

“No, seriously. Credit cards should work everywhere, but since they don’t, it means something funky’s going on.” Tucker winced. “I’m not saying that again.” Shaking himself, he continued, “Library’s the best place to start; they’ve got free computers and maps.”

“Good point,” Sam conceded, stuffing her wallet away.

“Here’s to hoping it’s not a long walk,” Danny muttered, running a hand through his hair.

* * *

It was a long walk. It took about an hour for them to find the library after getting lost twice and needing to ask for directions. By the time they arrived, they’d spent some of their cash on something to eat and were finishing up the last of their sandwiches.

“I’m never trashing Subway again,” Sam said, throwing her trash into the garbage directly outside the library. “Let’s go in.”

It didn’t take long for them to set up a computer and access Google. The first point of order was to figure out if Amity Park was where it should be. The second point was the keyboard, which actually looked pretty normal much to their surprise.

“This looks completely normal,” Tucker muttered, squinting at the keyboard. “I’m half expecting this to turn into Japanese script when I look away.”

“It’s English,” Danny whispered, looking between the keyboard and the computer. A cheery post-it note plastered to the side said time was limited to a max of thirty minutes if there was a line.

“Take it for what it is and just get Googling,” Sam said, pulling over another chair and sitting down next to Tucker.

Tucker didn’t respond except to type in “Amity Park, USA”. A couple million results popped up, but absolutely nothing on their hometown or the ghosts that frequented it. Frowning slightly, Tucker ran a different search, and then another when the second didn’t come up with anything relevant.

After ten different variations, Tucker shook his head and withdrew from the keyboard, lips pressed together. “I…think we’re in a different dimension.”

“Bit of a stretch, Tucker,” Danny said, trying to calm the panic he could feel welling in him. “Maybe we’re not looking in the right places.”

Tucker shot him an irritated look. “I’m a _tech_ geek, Danny. If I can’t find something, it’s not there to find. And Amity Park isn’t in this world. Whatever happened, we’re not home.”

“Understanding Japanese should’ve been a big clue,” Sam said, sighing. “At least it explains why my credit cards don’t work.”

“But an alternate _dimension_?” Danny sat back in his chair.

“Not outside the realm of possibilities,” Tucker said. “We’ve traveled through time, and the Ghost Zone is a different dimension. It’s like a neighbor. But now we’re just…a little further than the next house over.”

“Like Marvel?” Danny asked.

“A little more complicated than that,” Tucker said, “considering we don’t exist here.”

“So what? We’re stuck in Japan now?” Danny whispered, looking around the almost empty library.

“It’s not like we can just book a flight home,” Sam pointed out reasonably. “So, yeah, we’re stuck.” She sounded resigned.

“Doesn’t mean it’s forever,” Tucker said, closing down the search engine. “We got here somehow; we can find a way back.”

“I don’t see any mad scientists lurking around the corner,” Sam said dryly.

“What am I?” Tucker asked, affronted. “Chopped liver?”

“You’re a mad scientist?” Sam asked just as Danny said, “You can find a way back?”

Tucker sniffed. “No to both. But I do know my way around tech.”

Sam leaned in, her voice so low they had to strain their ears to hear. “Then can you do some hacking? Make up some accounts so we can get cash?”

“I’m not Tony Stark, Sam.” Tucker tapped his fingers against his thigh. “I’m not _that_ good.”

“You hacked into Skulker’s armor,” Danny said.

“He had my old PDA, and I knew that thing inside and out. Easy enough to hack into something I’m familiar with.” Tucker dropped his voice. “And while I can hack into government accounts, I can’t make up stuff that wasn’t there to begin with. I’m not that good.” He looked at Danny. “But we’ve got our own tricks.”

“I’m not _stealing_ ,” Danny hissed.

“Might not have a choice,” Sam murmured, frowning. “We haven’t got the cash to rent an apartment, even a dump. And this is Japan. They don’t _have_ the space. And if we need to get food, that restricts our funds even more.”

“So what? We find a place to stay and just dump ourselves there?”

Sam shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much. Someplace quiet, where no one will notice a few freeloaders…”

“And we lay low,” Danny said.

“Actually,” Tucker said, “I think it’d be better if we mingle. We need info, and the best way to do that is to get to know the area.” He swallowed. “We need to go to school.”

“But we don’t _exist_ ,” Danny objected. “Call me crazy, but I thought we needed social security numbers and a bunch of other legal papers?”

Tucker leaned back, slinging an arm around Danny’s shoulders. “Yeah, but we’ve got a _ghost_ on our side.” He winked. “Know what I mean?”

Blanching slightly, Danny stiffened. “Overshadowing?”

“It’s not going to harm anyone,” Sam said, shooting Tucker a warning look. “Just for a few minutes, long enough for us to get into the school.”

Danny sighed, hunching his shoulders together. “I don’t like this,” he muttered.

“I don’t either,” Sam said quietly. “But we’re outta options, Danny. Don’t have much of a choice.”

“I know.” Danny frowned, pursed his lips, and sat up, shaking his head. “Okay. Fine. Let’s do this.”

Tucker locked eyes with him before nodding, turning back to the computer to open up the search engine, this time to look for schools and apartments.

Sitting back in his chair, Danny kept his eyes fixed on his feet, refusing to meet Sam’s eyes. After two minutes, he felt Sam’s hand come to a rest on his shoulder.

A few seconds later, the tension seeped out of his shoulders at the warm, reassuring weight.

He could do this.

* * *

At the end of the school day, Ichigo met with all his friends in the crowded hall, using the din and anonymity to talk privately.

“There’s another shinigami in town,” Ichigo said quietly, catching all his friends’ attention. “Took care of the hollow that set off my alarm earlier.”

“That’s not a bad thing, is it?” Ishida said.

“No…” Ichigo’s mouth twisted. “I’m just kind of pissed that Soul Society didn’t tell me.”

Ishida shrugged. “What did you expect, Kurosaki?”

“Not this.” Ichigo leaned back against the wall.

“At least you don’t have to worry so much anymore, Kurosaki-kun,” Inoue said, smiling brightly. “Four hands lighten the workload, right?”

“Yeah…” Ichigo’s frown deepened. “But he was _weird_. Like, _really_ weird. Didn’t even carry a zanpakutou; he sucked the hollow into some kind of soup can.”

This elicited puzzled frowns.

“A soup can,” Ishida said slowly, seemingly sounding the words out to be sure that was what Ichigo had said.

“That didn’t contain soup?” Inoue sounded confused.

“Yep.” Ichigo demonstrated with a hand. “Just some kind of light and there went the hollow. So, weird, but I guess that’s to be expected.”

“Soul Society has strange weapons,” Chad mused quietly. “Perhaps the soup can was this shinigami’s zanpakutou?”

“To be honest,” Ishida said, “it wouldn’t be the weirdest one. One shinigami’s zanpakutou was nothing but shuriken when he released it.” A dark look flashed through his eyes.

“Could be.” Ichigo felt vaguely guilty about leaving out the way the kid had changed his appearance, but it really wasn’t something he felt comfortable with divulging. If it came down to it, he’d tell them later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trust me, there are reasons for everything, including Danny's ghost sense and hollows.
> 
> Please drop a note! :)


	3. Ghost Kid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a general FYI, the pairing between Danny and Sam will come later and will be relegated to the background. It's not even that important. Now, there's nothing planned for Ichigo. Kubo has always made it a point to assert that romance isn't a thing in his manga (despite a painfully obvious crush on Orihime's part), and he makes it really easy to interpret Ichigo as asexual and/or aromantic. So, for the purposes of this fic, that's exactly how I'm going to interpret Ichigo.
> 
> This chapter is where I really start to change things from the old version, and the next one has some more character interactions for both universes.

“Okay,” Danny said, phasing through the ceiling and landing next to his friends in a quiet corner of the library they were squatting in for the night. He handed a clipboard to Sam. “This is what I’ve got on the places I checked out.”

“Anything good off the top of your head?” Sam asked, flicking through the papers.

“They’re…kind of dumps?” Danny shrugged apologetically. “Which was the point, but still.”

Tucker paled upon reading one of Danny’s hastily scribbled notes. “Rats? Really?”

“Just a guess since I thought I heard something.”

“Yeah, that’s out.” Sam tore that sheet off and crumpled it up into a small ball, tossing it into the recycle bin without looking. “What’s the word on furniture?”

“What we’ve got are some lovely rooms,” Danny said. “No furniture. And I dunno about you, but I draw the line at stealing from furniture stores.”

“We could fish something from the garbage,” Tucker suggested, looking vaguely disgusted even as he said it.

“That’s a pretty good idea actually,” Sam said, tearing out another sheet of paper. “Might need to cover whatever we get with plastic, though…”

Danny and Tucker shared a disgusted look at the thought.

Sam caught it. “Get a grip, you two. In case you haven’t noticed, furniture dumped in garbage is usually in pretty good condition.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know _why_ they’re tossing it,” Tucker said seriously. “They might’ve murdered someone on the thing!”

“Which is why we’re using plastic sheeting. Easy enough to get – legally or illegally.”

“I’m gonna have a hell of a rap sheet when this is over,” Danny mused, leaning back against the table.

“Only if you get caught,” Tucker pointed out. “And statistically speaking, that’s unlikely.”

“Speaking of statistics,” Sam said, “I think I’ve nailed down where we’re staying.” She held up the clipboard so they could see. “Lucky number six! Conveniently located near a high school – or as close as we can get anyway – and in a back alley. Only two reports of insects”—she tapped Danny’s scribbles noting the appearance of spiders and flies—“and we’ve got working plumbing. From the info we pulled off the Internet, no one’s likely to move in anytime soon because of disturbances nearby.”

“What about heating?” Tucker asked.

Sam shrugged. “Did I say the plumbing was in the apartment itself?”

“Aw, crud.”

* * *

They spent the rest of the night getting the things they would need to make the small apartment they had settled on remotely inhabitable for the time being. It didn’t take much flying on Danny’s part to find some sturdy couches. He struck gold on the fifth outing and recovered a bed frame, only to realize that they’d  need a mattress as well.

Considering that Tucker’s fears of nefarious actions being done on mattresses was more legitimate than if they were talking about a couch, they agreed that filching a mattress from the garbage would be a bit much. And since Danny wasn’t inclined to lug the bed frame back out on the street after having lugged it into the apartment to begin with, they pushed it upright against a wall to forget about.

As Sam had said, the plumbing didn’t work in the apartment itself, but it was working in the building. And with some research on Tucker’s end, they figured out how to mooch off the residents next door. There was nothing much that could be done for the heating, but luckily it was summer in Japan, so it wasn’t like they’d freeze.

Now _sweltering_ on the other hand…

By the time the sun crept over the horizon, they had furnished the tiny apartment to the best of their abilities. They had a grand total of three couches that Danny had managed to filch off the streets (along with the bed frame, but they tactfully ignored its looming presence). Blankets were another thing, but Sam was confident they could get them in a store cheap. They had working plumbing, but had to be cautious not to overuse it and make their neighbors suspicious about their sudden rise in water usage.

With their lodgings ready, the only thing that remained for them to do was enroll in a high school.

* * *

At seven-thirty, Danny flew them all to Karakura High School, the closest one to their home base. They slipped into the principal’s office, waiting until the coast was clear before Danny overshadowed her.

Sam made sure the blinds were drawn and the door locked before joining Tucker and Danny at the computer.

“I feel really bad about this,” Danny said, looking down at his currently very feminine hands. The nails were perfectly manicured and looked very shiny.

“She won’t even notice,” Tucker said, typing away at the keyboard. “What’s the password?”

Sighing, Danny closed his eyes. “I…think… RutolovesHinata69?” His eyebrows flew up. “That’s a weird one.”

“How do you spell that?”

Tilting his head to the side, Danny really hoped the language differences wouldn’t get them in trouble. “Capital R-U-T-O with a small L-O-V-E-S and a capital H-I-N-A-T-A. Six-nine,” he added as an afterthought.

“Ha ha,” Tucker muttered under his breath, quickly typing in the letters and numbers. “Okay, bingo. We’re in.”

“While you do that,” Danny said, “I’m gonna make sure she knows that we’re enrolled.”

Sam shot him a look. “Planting false memories?”

Danny shot her an irritated look, the expression more severe with this face than his usual one. “Not my idea, remember? Best I’ve done before is impressions. Gotta give it a shot anyway.”

“Can’t get around using our social security numbers,” Tucker said, making a face. “But I can make sure that any notifications get routed to us and not the school. We’re transfer students from Clark High School in America, so we keep our names. We know Japanese ’cause we’ve got relatives here.” He shrugged in response to the looks his friends shot him. “Just covering all our bases.”

“So when’s our first day?” Sam asked.

Tucker peered at the screen, tapping away at the keyboard for another few minutes. Then he leaned back, pushing his glasses up. “Tomorrow,” he announced, grinning. “Or the day after if you want. I could still spin that.”

“No, tomorrow’s good,” Sam said. “Danny?”

Danny tilted his head to the side, holding up a finger to signal that they should wait a second. A few seconds later, he opened his eyes, blinking. “Okay. I think it’s done. But we should probably stick around a few minutes more to see if it works.”

With a resolute nod, Tucker hit the enter button and submitted their information. Then, logging out, he made sure everything was back to normal so the principal wouldn’t suspect anything. Sam unlocked the door and pulled the blinds back, checking that the coast was still clear.

Carefully making sure the principal was sitting exactly how she’d been sitting before, Danny phased out, quickly grabbing hold of his friends to turn them all invisible. He pulled them to the ceiling, hovering there as they waited to see if what he’d done had worked.

The principal blinked, a dazed expression on her face. Shaking her head twice, she focused on the computer screen, mouth open in confusion.

“We have three new students,” she murmured in a mystical voice. “They’re coming tomorrow…” Then, shaking her head again, her eyes cleared and she returned to what she’d been doing before, picking up a pen.

A heavy pit in his stomach, Danny flew them back to the apartment. Just because it had been necessary didn’t mean he’d liked doing it.

* * *

“Ichigooo!” an annoying voice whined.

Ichigo neatly side-stepped the flying stuffed animal. It crashed into the door.

“Hey, Kon,” Ichigo said, throwing his backpack onto the bed. “You didn’t get stuffed into the laundry again, did you?”

“No, I hid under the bed.” Kon, a stuffed lion, jumped onto the bed and brushed off a dust ball. Then, pointing accusingly at Ichigo, he continued loudly, “When is nee-san coming home?”

“I dunno. Ask Soul Society. They haven’t been in touch with us for ages. Leave me alone and go bug someone else. I’ve got homework to do.” Ichigo pulled out an English textbook and sat down at his desk.

“And how am I supposed to do that?” Kon gestured to make the point that his body was quite literally a toy.

Ichigo didn’t deign to shoot him a glance. “Don’t yell. Yuzu has already asked me why I’m talking to myself up here.”

Kon snorted and accused him, “You never let me do anything anymore!”

Ichigo sighed and whirled around on his chair to face the annoying stuffed animal. “Why should I? Whenever I let you out, you either soil my reputation by hitting on girls or by completely wrecking my room! Last time, you busted my window.”

“Onii-chan!” A little girl with blonde hair opened her big brother’s room door. She wore an apron and held a duster in one hand. “Why are you talking to yourself?”

“Er—” Just in case, Ichigo glanced at Kon, relieved to find that he was pretending to be an innocent stuffed animal. “I…” A quick glance around gave him his English textbook, and he grabbed hold of it like it was a life raft. “English!” He gave his sister a grin. “Gotta practice.”

Yuzu nodded, appeased. “Dinner’s almost ready. You’re not going to be late this time, right?” The beseeching look she shot his way had his heart melting.

Ichigo shook his head. “No, Yuzu. I’ll see you in a bit.”

After his sister left, closing the door behind her, Ichigo turned to glare at Kon, who was moving now. “See what I mean? At least – oh, hey, Rukia.” His tone turned surprised.

“Nee-san?” Before Kon could turn around, a shoe stepped onto him.

A small and slim dark-haired girl with violet eyes sat down on Ichigo’s bed. No one would suspect that she was really a shinigami in a gigai.

“This is a surprise,” Ichigo said, throwing a pillow at Kon before he could further aggravate Rukia.

“It wasn’t planned.”

Ichigo stifled a sigh. “That’s awesome. Mind telling me what’s up with Soul Society? I’ve heard nothing from them in weeks, and now you’re here?”

 “Soul Society hasn’t gotten in touch with you because there’s nothing to get in touch with you about,” Rukia responded. “There’s been a huge drop in the amount of hollow activity if you hadn’t noticed, and Aizen isn’t making his whereabouts known.”

“Yeah, fine.” Ichigo rolled a pencil around in his fingers. “So you’re positive there’s nothing Soul Society needs to tell me?”

Rukia frowned, evidently confused. “Why? Did something happen?”

“Nothing much.” Ichigo shrugged. “I was just wondering if they’d by any chance had another shinigami assigned here.”

Rukia pointed to the substitute shinigami badge he had looped through a buckle on his pants. “Karakura is your job now, Ichigo.”

“Huh.” Ichigo frowned. “Because the last hollow that showed up wasn’t taken care of by me. A kid did it – a kid with white hair.”

“The only shinigami we have fitting that description is Hitsugaya Toushirou.” Rukia folded her hands together, leaning forward.

“It wasn’t him. This one was wearing something that looked like a jumpsuit – something on one of those sci-fi shows.”

“Definitely not a shinigami,” Rukia said firmly. “It could be a lost spirit.”

“It didn’t behave like a lost spirit. There was no chain, and it fired this green stuff at the hollow. Like a kidou almost.”

“We don’t have any kidou that are green,” Rukia said, frowning. “I’ll need to take a look at it before anything else can be done.”

“Fine by me.” Ichigo rubbed the back of his head, shooting a glance at the clock on his bedside table. “How long are you here for?”

Rukia shrugged. “Not long. But with this new development, I might have to extend my stay.” She grinned. “Mind a roommate?”

“Tch, you never listen, so what good is it if I say no?”

“No good at all!” Rukia bounded cheerfully over to the closet that had been her unofficial bedroom ever since she and Ichigo had started their unconventional relationship. She opened it, blinking in surprise upon realizing it was exactly as she’d left it.

“I haven’t had time to clean it out,” Ichigo said defensively, reading her stunned silence as disbelief. “Besides, it’s not like I’d know what to do with all your junk anyway!”

“He’s lying, nee-san!” Kon proclaimed, jumping up onto the bed. “He mopes and sighs whenever he looks at it!”

Rukia shot Ichigo an amused look.

Ichigo couldn’t help the light flush that heated his ears. “I do not!”

“Onii-chan?” Yuzu’s voice came from outside the door moments before she opened it. Rukia had enough time to spring into the closet and close the door by the time Yuzu looked in. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be late?”

“Ah, right!” Ichigo jumped up, making sure to drop his heavy English textbook directly on top of Kon, relishing the indignant grunt the action elicited. “Be right there!”

Following Yuzu down, Ichigo wondered if Rukia wanted something to eat. As he slammed his father into the doorframe, he also realized with a small twinge of guilt that he’d neglected to mention the fact that the “lost spirit” had somehow turned into a regular looking human being.

…Well, it wasn’t like she needed to know _now_ , right?

* * *

English was Ichigo’s first class of the day, and he half-expected nothing unusual to happen. Rukia had a different class than he did, but the rest of the day would see them both in the same classes. Ichigo had kept his mouth shut on this development, as Rukia had seemed peeved enough for two that she hadn’t managed to get the _exact_ same schedule as Ichigo.

In the end, it was probably for the better that she didn’t have the same schedule because then there was no way he could’ve hidden the fact that he was keeping a secret from her. Because as the bell rang, the teacher called up three new students that had just transferred from the United States.

They all looked rather stiff and uncomfortable in the school uniforms, but Ichigo’s attention was narrowed in on the black-haired transfer with blue eyes. He was nervously tugging at his collar and refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, but Ichigo would recognize him anywhere. How could he _not_ after seeing the kid walk out from behind a lamppost where a “lost spirit” had been scant seconds before?

And whatever he was, this kid definitely wasn’t a lost spirit. He breathed, talked, and walked like a human being; everyone could see him.

Ichigo forced himself to study the kid’s friends. The other boy was dark-skinned and had black wire-framed glasses. The girl looked the most annoyed by the school uniforms, and Ichigo thought he could guess why from her black hair, purple lipstick, and amethyst eyes. Karakura High School’s uniform didn’t do much if you were Goth.

“Good morning, class,” the teacher chirped cheerfully. “We have three transfer students joining us for the near future. They’ve transferred from the United States, but all speak fluent Japanese so please do your best to make them feel welcome.” She pointed to the names she’d written out on the chalkboard. “Fenton Danny, Manson Sam, and Foley Tucker, if you wouldn’t mind telling us a bit about yourselves?”

The black-haired kid looked like a deer caught in headlights for all of two seconds before he cleared his throat and said, “I’m Danny. I’m, uh…” He scratched the back of his head, grinning sheepishly. “Not very good at introductions,” he mumbled, shrugging.

Luckily for him, the girl took over. “I’m Sam. I don’t eat anything with a face on it, and I love darkness and despair.” She said this with a perfectly straight face that bode death and destruction to anyone who dared contest her statement.

“Tucker!” the other boy said brightly, waving a hand. “I love my tech.”

Nothing more was forthcoming from any of them, and after an awkward silence, the teacher cleared her throat. “Okay, let’s get started. You can take your seats now; any available place is fine.”

Ichigo’s eyes stayed on Fenton as he slowly walked to the empty seat next to Ichigo and sat down, still not meeting anyone’s eyes. Ichigo couldn’t tell if it was because Fenton really was nervous or because there was something in his eyes that wouldn’t be human.

Shaking himself, Ichigo tried to turn his attention to the front as the teacher told them all to pull out their notebooks and pencils. Still, he couldn’t help but return his focus to Fenton. The fact that he was sitting _right next to him_ didn’t really help.

Luckily for Ichigo’s schoolwork, Fenton and his friends weren’t in any of his other classes before lunch. But they _were_ in his lunch period, and Ichigo saw them sitting on the roof in a corner not far from where he and his friends usually ate lunch.

As his luck would have it, Ishida noticed Ichigo’s preoccupation with the transfer students.

“Is there something interesting about them, Kurosaki?” Ishida asked, drawing Ichigo’s attention away from where he’d been trying to bore a hole through Fenton’s skull.

“What?” Ichigo glanced back at Ishida.

“Have they done something?” Ishida asked, inclining his head in the direction of the transfer students. “You’ve been staring at them the entire time.”

“No…” Ichigo shook his head, returning his attention to his juice box, only to find that Rukia had snitched it while he’d been preoccupied. “Rukia!”

“What?” Rukia blinked innocently, sipping from said juice box. “You weren’t drinking it!”

Scowling, Ichigo snatched up his yogurt and made sure the rest of his lunch was untouched.

“Well?” Rukia prompted, raising an eyebrow. “Ishida’s right. You’ve been staring at the new students the entire time we’ve been up here.”

“It’s…” Ichigo opened his yogurt, pursing his lips. “I thought I’d seen them before, but I guess not.”

“They’re from America,” Ishida said. “When could you have seen them before?”

“I haven’t,” Ichigo said irritably, stabbing his spoon into his yogurt. “I just thought I did.”

“Do you want to talk with them?” Inoue asked.

Ichigo considered it for all of a second before shaking his head. “Nah. It’s fine. I’m probably getting them confused with a spirit or something.”

“It’s happened,” Rukia said, looking over at the three transfers. They were talking to each other, huddled together in a group. If Ichigo were the suspicious sort, he’d say they were planning something.

But, luckily, he wasn’t. Really. He just had suspicions. Besides, they weren’t hurting anyone, so it wasn’t like he needed to tell anyone that he thought Fenton Danny was part spirit.

* * *

English was probably the weirdest class of Danny’s day. For one, it was English in Japan, and it was completely boring because he _spoke_ English. For two, the orange-haired kid Danny ended up sitting next to wouldn’t stop staring at him. Danny thought he might have something on his face, but a quick brush of his sleeve over his face didn’t seem to change anything.

So he was relieved when English was over and he could leave the creepy kid behind. Then came lunch, and he kept feeling eyes on the back of his head. They’d taken their lunch outside to the roof where a lot of the other kids were eating, and Danny had hoped it would give them some privacy.

A peek over his shoulder revealed that the orange-haired kid and his friends were also eating on the roof. And the kid was again staring at Danny – practically boring holes into his skull, actually – as if he had personally insulted him.

And since Danny had never seen that kid before in his life, he had absolutely no idea what he’d done to piss him off.

Sam and Tucker didn’t notice a thing, so Danny made sure they were sufficiently distracted that they didn’t catch sight of his creeper. He’d rather not have Sam march up to the kid and demand to know why he was staring.

By the time lunch was over, Danny hoped he wouldn’t see the orange-haired kid again. That hope was promptly dashed to pieces when they walked into history class. This time he made sure to take a seat as far away as possible and behind the other guy.

It did take care of the staring, so Danny focused on learning Japanese history, which was a lot more interesting than learning American history over and over again every year.

They were halfway through the class when Danny’s ghost sense went off at the same time a terrifyingly loud voice screaming “HOLLOW!” repeatedly did. He flinched violently, knocking his knees against the underside of the desk and attracting the attention of everyone in the class.

“Fenton, are you all right?” The teacher actually sounded concerned.

“Fine.” Danny managed a grin, eyes flicking around the room to find the source of the noise no one else had reacted to. Were they all used to it? Was it normal? “I just…can I go to the bathroom?”

For a second it sounded like there was an echo, but then Danny realized that the orange-haired kid had asked the same question at the same time as Danny. Said kid turned around, giving Danny a confused look that was a far cry from the stares he’d been shooting his way all day.

The teacher looked between Danny and the other kid, for some reason a resigned expression crossing her face. Then, sighing, she said, “Make it quick.”

Quickly mouthing “ghost” to his friends, Danny stood and reached the door as the other kid did. Heedlessly, the other kid pushed Danny into the doorframe as he rushed out, setting off into a dead sprint the moment he entered the hallway. Gaping after him, Danny wondered what was going on before remembering he had a ghost to take care of.

Shooting the bemused teacher a look, Danny managed to offer a sheepish grin before taking off in the opposite direction of Ichigo.

Once in the bathroom, he locked himself in a stall and went ghost. Phasing up through the ceiling, Danny looked around once to confirm that the ghost wasn’t anywhere near the school.

“Where’s the ghost?” Danny scratched his head, doing another 360 before realizing he’d forgotten his thermos. “I’m an idiot.”

It took him a minute to retrieve the thermos. By the time he made his way back out, he could hear some howling that didn’t sound human. It also didn’t sound like a ghost, but it did sound like that masked monster he’d sucked in before.

Tucking the thermos away, Danny took off in the direction of the howling, only to nearly slam into another person who was flying. He avoided a collision by the skin of his teeth, having enough time to see that it was that orange-haired kid who’d been staring at him all day.

Oh, of _course_ , the strange, creepy kid who’d been staring at him would turn out to be something not human!

The kid was staring at him now, eyes narrowing, when Danny decided he should really focus on the masked monster that was somewhere around. Giving the kid a cheeky wave, he turned tail and flew.

The monster was prowling the streets, and Danny took the opportunity to attack it with a barrage of ghost rays. They all hit, but all the monster did was roar and swipe ineffectively at Danny, who was hovering too high to be touched.

“Feeling a little low?” Danny taunted, firing another ghost ray.

The monster’s response was a yowl before it swung its extremely long tail directly into Danny and hurled him into a building. He crashed into the wall and through it, landing in an office space. Dazed, he shook his head, dimly realizing that people around him were screaming and running away.

Pushing himself to his feet, Danny looked up just in time to see a dark-haired man point a camera in his direction. There was a flash of light and then the man was running, camera still in hand.

“Oh, priorities,” Danny muttered, stepping up to the hole he’d made. “When a picture is more important than your life…”

Poking his head out, Danny took note of where the monster was. He was about to             jump into the fight when the kid he’d seen earlier suddenly appeared, whipping out an absolutely enormous sword that sliced through the monster’s head in a second. Then, before his disbelieving eyes, the monster disintegrated into particles, howling in rage.

“What.” Danny blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Nope. The monster was still gone, and the weird kid was just…standing on thin air.

Deciding leaving would be the better option here, Danny began to fly off, only to pause when he heard a loud “Hey, you!”

Cringing slightly, Danny threw a look over his shoulder to see the kid who’d hollered looking right at him. “Me?”

“Yeah, you.” The kid didn’t let go of his sword, but his stance didn’t look threatening.

Danny refrained from looking longingly in the direction of the school. “Did you want something?”

The kid held up a wooden badge that looked like it had a skull on it. “Kurosaki Ichigo, substitute shinigami. Who’re you?”

Flipping the names around, Danny realized his first name was Ichigo. “I’m…Phantom.”

“ _Phantom_?” The word sounded strange coming from Ichigo’s mouth, almost as if it was coming through a filter. It cleared a moment later, Ichigo repeating it and saying, “Fantomu.”

Blinking disconcertedly, Danny didn’t bother correcting Ichigo. He instead focused on the first thing Ichigo had said. “What’s a shinigami?”

Ichigo studied him, brown eyes piercing. “You’re not a spirit, are you?”

“I’m a ghost.” Danny shrugged in response to the blank look that garnered.

Ichigo shook his head. “Ghost, spirit, whatever you are, you can’t stay here.”

Danny tensed. “Meaning?”    

“You need to cross over.” Ichigo’s grip on his sword changed. “That’s my job.”

“Your job is to kill ghosts?” Danny yelped, alarmed.

“No!” Ichigo scowled. “You’re already dead! That’s why you’re like that!” He gestured at Danny. “I’m just gonna help you get to the other side. It’s better over there.”

“I kinda like it right here,” Danny said, slowly inching back. The moment he could, he was going invisible and fleeing.

“Don’t we all,” Ichigo muttered. He raised his voice. “Doesn’t change my mind, Fantomu.”

A loud scream distracted both of them. Then tires screeching, the sounds of metal crashing, and car horns honking filled the air. They both looked down, shocked to find a large pile-up right beneath them. Around it, people looked up, pointing and gazing in fear directly at Danny. They didn’t seem to be noticing Ichigo.

“Oh crud.” Danny swallowed as Ichigo’s eyes flew to him. “Ah…I’m gonna…go.” He gestured vaguely about him. “It’s been nice chatting with you and all that, but I should really go before anything else happens.”

And before Ichigo could say anything else, Danny had taken off, turning invisible as he did.

“Fantomu! Wait!”

Yeah, no thanks. Danny was _not_ going to be some weird kid’s attempt at helping ghosts cross over to the other side.

* * *

After school ended – which was fifteen minutes after Danny got back – Danny,  Sam, and Tucker quickly escaped the building and began walking in the general direction of a grocery store. Sam had already taken off the vest and stuffed it into her backpack.

“How’d it go?” she asked once they were sufficiently far away enough from the school building.

“It…” Danny shrugged, thinking back to Ichigo and how glad he was that school had ended before he could run into him again. “Weird. Really weird.”

Sam frowned, loosening her shirt collar. “What d’you mean?”

 “Same ghost as last time – weird mask and everything—”

“The one that wasn’t there?” Tucker asked.

“It _was_ there,” Danny said indignantly. “But that’s not what was weird. It… There was this kid – Ichigo. Orange hair – back at school?”

“The one that was staring at us,” Sam said, nodding.

Danny stared at her.

“What? I noticed! Kind of hard not to when the guy’s trying to bore holes in the back of my best friend’s head!”

Feeling rather foolish now that he knew Sam had restrained herself from going up and browbeating that kid – Ichigo – Danny continued, “Yeah, it was that guy. I don’t think he’s entirely human.”

A large fire truck wailed past them, followed by a police car. They rounded a corner and then apparently stopped since the sirens didn’t get any quieter.

Exchanging glances, the trio picked up the pace, rounding the same corner and stopping dead upon seeing the massive pile-up that had formed in the middle of the street.

Tucker whistled lowly. “This from the fight, Danny?”

Danny scanned the buildings, seeing the hole he’d made in one of them. “No. Happened after when they saw me.”

Sam pursed her lips, shaking her head. “What happened to laying low?”

Danny shot her an injured look. “It was an accident! I was talking to Ichigo; he was kind of trying to get me to cross over to the other side at that point. I was a bit distracted!” His eyes darted around, catching sight of Ichigo and his friends on the other side of the street. “There he is!” he hissed, pointing.

Sam and Tucker turned to look, making it painfully obvious what they were doing before Danny snatched them by the elbows and turned them around.

“Now tell me I’m not crazy!” Danny whispered. “Is he like me?”

“It’s…possible,” Tucker said slowly. “What’d you guys talk about?”

“Crossing over.” Danny made a face. “He called himself a shinigami, but didn’t say what it was.”

“Shinigami,” Sam repeated thoughtfully. “I’ve heard that before…”

“What is it?” Tucker asked.

“I dunno.” Sam made a disgusted face. “I’ll need to look it up.”

Danny glanced over his shoulder, a frisson of fear running through him when he saw Ichigo looking right at him. “I think we should leave.” When his friends protested, he grabbed their hands. “Now.”

Even as he hauled them into an alley, he could feel Ichigo’s brown eyes on his back.

This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

* * *

“I thought you were past the stage when you caused mass property damage,” Ishida said dryly once Ichigo showed them the place he’d encountered the white-haired spirit – Fantomu.

“This time it wasn’t me,” Ichigo said. “It’s what happened when they saw Fantomu.”

Rukia’s eyes snapped to him. “They _saw_ him?”

“Yeah. Surprised me, too. But they definitely saw him. Were staring up at him and everything. That hole’s from him, too.” Ichigo pointed up to the hole in one of the buildings.

“So he isn’t a spirit?” Inoue asked.

“It’s…” Rukia folded her arms, frowning pensively. “Theoretically,” she said slowly, “if he had too much reiryoku he could become visible. I think. Kurotsuchi-taichou would know more.”

Ishida gave a twitch at that, but said nothing in response to the looks shot his way.

“Did you manage to perform a konsou on him?” Rukia asked Ichigo.

Ichigo grimaced. “No. Flew off before I could catch him.”

Rukia sighed. “Not that it can be helped now. I’ll tag along next time; we’ll get him then.”

Ichigo opened his mouth, about to respond, when he caught sight of Fenton and his friends across the street. Their backs were facing him, but he’d recognize Fenton’s hair anywhere from how long he’d been staring at him during lunch. When Fenton glanced back at him, Ichigo felt only mildly guilty when a flash of fear crossed his face and Fenton hauled his friends off.

Much to Ichigo’s confusion, Fenton ended up pulling his friends into an alley. When they didn’t reemerge from its depths, Ichigo figured that Fenton must have a few tricks up his sleeves. Considering how he’d simply disappeared on Ichigo about half an hour ago, it wasn’t too difficult to believe.

“Ichigo?” Rukia asked, nudging his arm.

“Sounds good,” Ichigo said, though he hadn’t the slightest idea what he’d just confirmed.

He was too busy figuring out what the hell to do with Fenton and Fantomu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please suspend disbelief for some logistical issues regarding politics, legalities, and living situations. Neither of these universes are exactly entirely accurate when it comes to real-world stuff, so I'm hand-waving a bunch of stuff while also trying to make it realistic.
> 
> Please leave a comment! :)


	4. Startling Developments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featuring some of my favorite dialogue! I did enjoy tweaking this chapter, since it involved better character interactions and also some really funny dialogue courtesy of the infamous Box Ghost.  
> And, well, _Bleach_ has its fair share of cracky moments, so the Box Ghost isn't that out of place.

The next morning in English, Ichigo had the dubious honor of once again sitting next to Fenton Danny. This time, because he _knew_ Fenton knew he was a substitute shinigami and because _Ichigo_ knew there was something funny going on with Fenton, the atmosphere between them was tense and awkward. Even though they didn’t even speak to each other, no one wanted to walk between them because of the tension filling the air between them.

His friends shot confused looks in Ichigo’s direction, but didn’t pin Fenton as part of the problem even though Ichigo had been staring at him the entire time yesterday. Ichigo was just relieved Rukia didn’t share English with him because he really didn’t want her involvement in this until he could figure out what was happening.

For all that Rukia was a friend, she was still too embroiled in Soul Society for Ichigo to trust her 100%. He didn’t trust what Soul Society would do if they got their hands on someone like Fenton, especially considering his current relationship with them. He might be on amiable terms with some of the taichou and lower ranking shinigami, but that didn’t include the fact that he and his friends had stormed the Seireitei and torn it apart in search of Rukia.

Sighing, Ichigo scratched his nose and refocused on what the teacher was talking about. He couldn’t help but notice that Fenton was practically falling asleep in  his chair. Which, considering that he was from America, wasn’t too surprising. He could probably swing a good grade in this class in his sleep.

Manson and Foley seemed more awake, but not by much. From what Ichigo could tell, Foley apparently had some sort of gadget in his lap and was playing with it. And Manson was doodling bats and zombies on her paper.

Mentally slapping himself, Ichigo looked down at his own paper, which was completely blank. For the first time in his career as a substitute shinigami, he almost wished for a hollow attack.

* * *

After an extremely awkward English class where Danny didn’t look or speak to Ichigo and Ichigo didn’t look or speak at him, Danny was extremely relieved to be away from him. Then came lunch, and he insisted they stay indoors in case Ichigo and his friends were again on the roof.

Shooting a longing look outside, Sam sighed and put her brown paper bag down on her desk. She fished a rather green banana out, beginning the slow process of unpeeling it.

“I’d ask if you were overly paranoid,” Tucker said, “but I think this answers my question.”

“I’m not gonna risk Ichigo sending me to the other side if I can help it,” Danny said, unpacking his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“As a shinigami, it’s his job,” Sam said.

Danny looked up from his sandwich. “What _is_ a shinigami anyway?”

“Literal definition is ‘death god’ in English,” Sam said, waving her banana around. “Shinigami are mythological creatures in Japan, but I guess they’re not _that_ mythological if Ichigo is one.”

“Here’s a funny thing,” Tucker said, taking a big bite of his baloney sandwich. “How come you heard ‘shinigami’ when everything else is English? Shouldn’t you have heard ‘death god’ or something like that?”

“I dunno.” Danny shrugged. “I introduced myself as Phantom when he asked, but then he called me something like ‘fantomu.’”

“Fantomu,” Sam repeated slowly. “If I’m not mistaken…that means ‘phantom’ in Japanese.”

“So what? Names come across as Japanese for us?” Tucker asked.

“Ichigo sounded weird when he first said ‘phantom,’” Danny said. “And I mean ‘ _phantom_ ,’ like how I said it. Then he sounded normal when he said ‘fantomu.’”

Sam looked rather bemused. “Weird inter-dimensional physics?” she wondered.

“Yeah, bouncing from dimension to dimension isn’t going to give you the ability to understand different languages,” Tucker argued.

“I don’t see you coming up with a better explanation.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Maybe we should just be thankful for it?” Danny interrupted. “’Cause I dunno about you, but not having to pantomime everything we need because we can’t speak Japanese is pretty awesome.

“Amen,” Tucker agreed.

Sam rolled her eyes. “Then while we stop questioning the reason behind us hearing Japanese as English, maybe we should focus on Ichigo? And what he wants to do with Danny?”

“Crossing over to the other side only works if you’re dead, right?” Danny asked tentatively. “And I’m not dead, so…”

“Ichigo thinks you’re dead, so to the other side you’ll be going,” Sam pointed out. “Unless you’ve got any smart ideas that don’t involve telling him you’re half-ghost?”

“Staying invisible?” Danny grimaced. “We’re in the same school; ignoring or avoiding him is gonna be hard.”

“Hey, you only share two classes with him,” Tucker said. “And the school’s pretty big. Avoiding him might be easier than you think.”

* * *

Danny was really going to kill Tucker the next time he saw his friend. Because avoiding Ichigo would be totally possible if the other guy hadn’t cornered him in the bathroom in-between classes and kept him there even after the bell rang. And Danny wasn’t exactly keen on doing anything ghostly while he looked completely human and Ichigo probably didn’t know he was _half-_ ghost.

Besides, for all he knew, Ichigo just wanted to be friends.

“What are you?”

Or maybe not.

“That’s a weird question to ask,” Danny said, managing to keep his voice calm. “I’m human?”

Surprisingly, instead of blowing up or turning menacing, Ichigo sighed. He dropped his voice when he spoke again. “I saw you that day. You flew behind a lamp and then this”—he gestured at Danny—“walked out. I’m not stupid. You’re not entirely human. And that’s okay,” he continued hurriedly before Danny could do anything stupid like panic, “because you know I’m not either. So why don’t we drop the pretenses and be honest with each other?”

“That sounds great. Really.” Danny swallowed, eyes darting past Ichigo to the empty bathroom where no sign of help was to be had. Surely Tucker and Sam had noticed something was off? “But I don’t know you.”

“I’m someone who wants to help.”

Danny shot him a look that clearly read “yeah, right.” “You’re a shinigami. You want to help me ‘cross over to the other side.’” He used air quotation marks. “I don’t call that _helpful_.”

“It’s my job.” Ichigo didn’t sound at all apologetic. “And spirits who don’t cross over turn into hollows.”

Danny frowned at that word. “What’s that?”

Ichigo stared at him for a moment. “That spirit you sucked into that soup can of yours? That’s a hollow.”

“Ohhh.” Danny pressed himself against the wall, desperately wishing he could just phase through and be done with it. Ichigo already knew he was half-ghost – or not entirely human – so it wasn’t like he’d be showing his hand or anything. But he could get more information like this, so he should probably just stick it out. “Weird name for a ghost.”

Now Ichigo frowned. “Spirit,” he said slowly. “They’re not ghosts.”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “ _I’m_ a ghost,” he whispered, taking Ichigo aback. “Not a spirit. I’m not _dead_. So I can’t cross over!”

Ichigo actually looked considering at that. He leaned back, giving Danny more space. “Huh… So I guess you might not turn into a hollow…”

“Shinigami are spirits?”

“Let’s put it this way: anything you see that’s _not_ normal is a spirit.”

“Funny. I’d call them ghosts, but I guess you’re the expert here.” Danny folded his arms. “So if you’re a spirit, won’t _you_ turn into one of those hollows?”

“No, see… Spirits with broken chains are the ones you want to watch out for.” Ichigo tapped the center of his chest. “They have to cross over before they change. Shinigami are a different sort of spirit.”

“Ugh, confusing,” Danny muttered, earning an arched eyebrow. He continued before Ichigo could say anything else, “So you’re gonna leave me alone?”

Ichigo rubbed the back of his neck, taking another step back and giving Danny more room to breathe. “I wish I could,” he finally said quietly. “But it’s better if I keep an eye on you for your own safety.”

Danny jerked indignantly. “I can take care of myself!”

Ichigo shot him an amused look. “I can tell. Hollows aren’t the problem. I’m not the only shinigami around, Fenton. If another shinigami sees you, they’ll either perform a konsou on you or capture you.”

Not bothering to ask after the unfamiliar word, Danny swallowed. “And you can stop that?”

“I can help.” Ichigo shrugged. “But you’ve gotta lay low. That means not going after hollows. They’re my responsibility.”

“Okay…” Danny swallowed again, rubbing the back of his neck nervously before he forced his hand to drop. “I can do that.”

Ichigo nodded. “And if I’m not around, go to my friends. They can help you, too.”

“Do they know?”

“I didn’t tell them about you not being human, if that’s what you mean. Though I probably should now…” Ichigo’s eyes swept up his form.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” Danny said.

“In this case, I really don’t have a choice. They need to know in case they need to defend you or go for help.”

“In that case, I’m telling my friends about this.”

Ichigo arched an eyebrow. “They’re human?”

Danny nodded once, not bothering to elaborate.

“Fine. If you need me, my dad’s got a clinic in town under Kurosaki Isshin.” Ichigo turned. “Now I’m gonna go to class. And _you_ ”—he whirled to jab a finger into Danny’s chest—“are going to lay _low_. Got it?”

Danny made a face, pushing Ichigo’s offending finger away. “Yeah, got it.”

“Good.” Ichigo nodded and spun on his heel, exiting the bathroom and leaving Danny alone.

With a relieved sigh, Danny slumped over, rubbing his forehead. That had gone better than he’d expected – never mind he hadn’t expected it.

Anything that didn’t lead to him being studied or experimented on was a bonus.

* * *

Since Rukia was still around, Ichigo couldn’t find a way of telling his friends about Fenton without also letting Rukia know. And while he trusted Rukia – he _did_ , okay – he didn’t trust her with Fenton’s secret. She’d given up in Soul Society and had been fully willing to die; just because she’d been saved didn’t mean her attitude on Soul Society was any different. She was a shinigami – an _actual_ one – and Ichigo couldn’t trust that she would trust _him_ and leave Fenton alone.

Ichigo didn’t trust Fenton, but he believed that the kid didn’t mean any harm. Whenever he’d seen Fenton’s ghost side, it was only when he fought a hollow. That wasn’t exactly the hallmark of an evil person. So for the moment, he was going to give Fenton the benefit of the doubt and make sure Soul Society didn’t catch wind of the fact that he was anything but a lost spirit.

The next day, Manson and Foley shot him suspicious looks throughout English class, but Ichigo ignored them. They were human and had absolutely no understanding of the danger Fenton would be in if Soul Society ever found out who he was. Fenton was much more relaxed this time, with none of the tension from the previous day. He still ignored Ichigo, but that was fine.

It wasn’t until after lunch that Ichigo’s badge went off, signaling that a hollow was in the vicinity. As luck would have it, Fenton was also in the hallway, and he met Ichigo’s eyes for a moment before inclining his head and turning his back, continuing to chat with his friends.

Relieved that Fenton would keep his nose out of this, Ichigo went off to stash his body somewhere safe. Rukia was in the bathroom right now, having been dragged there by Inoue’s friends, but she’d catch up soon enough hoping to find Fantomu.

Once his body was safely stuffed into a broom closet, Ichigo followed his badge to where the hollow should be.

The closer he got, the more he was confused. Because there was no sign or sound of a hollow, but there _was_ screaming. Screaming that shouldn’t be there considering hollows were invisible to the mass populace.

Although he didn’t see a hollow, Ichigo had to stop upon reaching the spot where the screaming was coming from. Cars were stopped on the street – some had even crashed into each other – and people were hiding behind mailboxes, lampposts, fire hydrants, and inside or behind cars. The source of the chaos seemed to be a blue-skinned pudgy man in overalls who was throwing boxes willy-nilly. 

“I am the Box Ghost!” the man shouted, flinging a large crate at a truck. “You shall all cower before me!”

That…wasn’t a hollow. Ichigo paused indecisively, wondering what the hell he should do considering this development. He looked down at his badge, which had stopped blinking. Then he looked back at the so-called Box Ghost, which was _supposed_ to be the hollow according to the badge.

But wait… Box _Ghost_. Like Fenton?

Ichigo looked down at the panicking people. That would explain why they could see it.

“Even in this strange world I have power over all things cardboard and square!” the Box Ghost declared loudly, catching Ichigo’s attention.

“Yeah, hello?” Ichigo called, immediately catching the ghost’s attention. “Quick question… Who are you?”

The ghost puffed up indignantly. “I am the Box Ghost! Who are you to talk so insolently to me?”

Oh, stupid, Kurosaki. Of course the ghost would say that. He held up his badge. “Kurosaki Ichigo, substitute shinigami. D’you really mean ghost, or would you happen to be a spirit?”

“I am the Box Ghost!” the Box Ghost repeated unhelpfully. He narrowed his eyes at Zangetsu on Ichigo’s back. “That overgrown sword can do _nothing_ to me!”

“Oi!” Ichigo objected indignantly. “Zangetsu is just fine! And it’s a zanpakutou, not a sword!”

This gave the Box Ghost pause. “Zanpakutou?” He screwed his face up in confusion.

Ichigo refrained from rubbing his forehead in aggravation. Pressing his eyes shut, he pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath, and said, “Never mind. You need to cross over, Box Ghost. Unless you look human?” He eyed the Box Ghost’s blue skin doubtfully.

“I am not a half-ghost!” the Box Ghost proclaimed, sounding upset Ichigo would even think so.

“I didn’t say you were!” Ichigo reached back for Zangetsu, curling his fingers over the hilt. “You’re not a hollow either, so that means you’ve got to go.”

“A hollow cardboard box?”  The Box Ghost drew himself up to his full height, which wasn’t much. “How dare you!”

Ichigo wondered if the ghost was possibly insane. “Not a _box_. It’s a spirit, a nasty – why am I telling you this?” He sighed. “Have you seen anything like a big monster with a mask?”

The Box Ghost looked thoughtful now. “A masked monster? There’s a huge wolf”—Ichigo blinked—“a huge cloud”—Ichigo opened his mouth, frowning—“an overgrown plant”—Ichigo closed his mouth, still frowning—“and me!”

Now Ichigo couldn’t hold it back. “Say what?”

The Box Ghost apparently didn’t hear him. “The feared Box Ghost! There is no such thing as a masked monster! My reward for capture is huge!”

There was a reward for capturing this ghost? “And…how much is it?”

“Fifty dollars!” the Box Ghost announced proudly.

Ichigo spluttered. “Fifty dollars? Wha – wait… That’s American currency. You’re from America?”

“I am from the Ghost Zone!”

“Ghost…Zone?” Ichigo furrowed his brow. “You mean you guys have a home?”

The Box Ghost looked at him like he was stupid. “Do you not?”

Ichigo pointed down. “You’re looking at it. So could you stop destroying it?”

The Box Ghost stuck his tongue out at Ichigo. “Make me!” Then before Ichigo could react, a large box was thrown at him. It hit him heavily, knocking him back several feet.

“What’s in there?” Ichigo demanded, whipping Zangetsu out to the side. “Books?”

The Box Ghost actually considered the question for a moment before shrugging. “It matters not! All you must be aware of is that you will face your dooom!”

From that point on, Ichigo spent the next five minutes frantically dodging boxes and crates as he tried to get close to the evasive Box Ghost, who was a hell of a lot faster than one would expect from a fat guy even if he was a ghost. He managed to knock several into the sky where they would come crashing down into the street. Several others hit or grazed him while others flew right past and crashed into buildings or smashed through windows.

“You know,” Ichigo muttered, slashing through a box, “fifty dollars really isn’t much of a capture award.”

The Box Ghost seemed to have heard this, as he immediately shouted, “I have defeated Undergrowth in the race for the most wanted!”

Ichigo stopped, ducking his head slightly to let a small box fly over it. “What’s his award?” he asked warily.

The Box Ghost counted on his fingers. “Six zeroes… Three million dollars!”

Ichigo almost lost his concentration and fell. “What? You’ve got to be kidding me, right?”

“I never kid!” The Box Ghost raised his arms. “Now prepare to face your boxed dooooom!”

Before Ichigo could even shunpo – or blink for that matter – there was a whirring sound and a flash of bluish-white light as the Box Ghost was enveloped in it and disappeared into nothing.

“And I thought my math was bad,” Ichigo thought he heard someone mutter. It sounded an awful lot like Fenton except with an undertone of an echo, and Ichigo almost groaned. Hadn’t he told him to lay _low_?

“Fantomu,” Ichigo hissed, flickering his eyes around to see if he could see him.

There was a swishing sound, and he thought he felt a presence at his shoulder, but there was no one there. “Yeah.” That was Fenton’s voice. “I know you told me to lay low, but the fight was kinda drawing attention, and I couldn’t help but notice the Box Ghost.”

“You know him?”

Ichigo had the impression Fenton shrugged. “Unfortunately.” There was a faint note of disgust in the other’s tone. “He’s an idiot.”

Ichigo nodded, exhaling slowly. “You should probably leave now. I’ve got a friend who’ll be here soon, and she’ll want to perform a konsou on you.”

There was a silence for a brief moment, and Ichigo thought Fenton might’ve taken the hint and left when his voice came again. “What’s a konsou?”

“What’s a – are you serious?” Ichigo whipped his head around to stare disbelievingly into empty space. After a moment of this, he realized he really couldn’t carry on a conversation with thin air without feeling like he was crazy. “Can you turn visible?”

“I cooouuuld.” The words were slowly drawn out. “But that’d draw more attention.”

“Then let’s do it over there.” Ichigo gestured at a building, bounding over there to make his point.

He wasn’t sure Fenton followed him until a white-haired kid in a jumpsuit suddenly materialized in front of him.

“Konsou?” Fenton prompted, reminding Ichigo why they were here to begin with.

“It’s how spirits cross over,” Ichigo explained shortly. “Just a little stamp”—he demonstrated vaguely with Zangetsu—“and there they go.”

“Convenient. Wish I had something like that for ghosts.” Fenton sighed longingly.

Ichigo raised an eyebrow, intrigued despite himself. “Ghosts happen often?”

“You have _no_ idea,” Fenton said fervently.

Ichigo thought about the hollows and shinigami that liked to make his life complicated. “I think I do.”

Further conversation was put to a halt when Rukia’s voice came from behind him. “Ah, Ichigo! Thanks for waiting!”

Shit! “Rukia!” Ichigo half-turned, dismayed to find that she was already here.

“This him?” Rukia gave Fenton a considering look. Fenton looked rather like a deer caught in headlights, not unlike how he’d looked a couple days earlier.

Ichigo forced himself to sound casual. “Yep.”

“That him, too?” Rukia gestured back at the mess the humans were gradually beginning to wonder at.

“Nope.” Ichigo shrugged. “That was a blue guy in overalls that really had a thing for boxes.”

“Huh.”  Rukia didn’t pay him anymore mind, already pulling out her zanpakutou. “All right, spirit, it’s time to cross over. There’s no need to be afraid. This will be painless.”

Fenton’s eyes widened. “No, wait! St—” Rukia was before him with a quick application of shunpo, and the base of her zanpakutou came down with a sharp tap on Fenton’s forehead.

Ichigo bit back the protest that sprang to his lips. It would do him no good here.

Fenton had said he wasn’t dead, so chances were the konsou wouldn’t take. What would happen if a konsou were applied to someone living? Ichigo had never attempted such a thing, so he had no idea. He didn’t think Rukia knew either judging from the perplexed expression crossing her face as she noted that Fenton was _not_ crossing over.

In fact, there was a rather violent light show occurring right now, in which Ichigo could hear some pained screams.

“This is an especially violent konsou,” Rukia noted, frowning. “I’ve never seen it like this.”

“He’s not exactly _normal_ ,” Ichigo pointed out. “And neither was the other spirit that popped up earlier. He controlled boxes, and they could see him.” He gestured down at the street.

Rukia shot him an alarmed look. “That’s not possible.”

“Tell that to my bruises.”

A flare of light dragged all of their attention back to the failed konsou right now taking place. If he squinted, Ichigo could make out Fenton’s figure inside the light, which was gradually beginning to fade.

Rukia didn’t seem to see the same thing Ichigo did. “Finally,” she breathed. “The spirit’s been put to rest.” She ate those words a second later when she saw Fenton’s white hair gleam in the sun. “What? That – that’s not  possible!”

“Ow…” Fenton grimaced painfully, looking slightly paler than what Ichigo had gotten used to but otherwise normal. “That _really_ hurt.” He rubbed his forehead, shooting Rukia an annoyed look. “You need to work on your methods. Not the best way to persuade a guy to cross over.”

“That’s not possible!” Rukia repeated disbelievingly.

Fenton rolled his eyes, pointing to himself. “Still present, so it’s possible!” He dropped his hand to his side, a stern expression crossing his face. “Next time, keep that sword off me, okay? I don’t wanna go through that again!” His startlingly green eyes flicked over to Ichigo, and he shot him a grin. “Catch ya later, Ichigo. Nice chatting with ya.” Without another word, he disappeared from view.

For a few seconds, Ichigo struggled with what to say before he turned to Rukia. “What’s Soul Society going to say?”

“They’re…” Rukia’s mouth moved but no sound came out for several seconds. Finally, she shook her head and said, “They’re not going to believe me.”

“It’s definitely not normal,” Ichigo offered.

Rukia shot him an annoyed look. “That much is for sure, Ichigo. But this…this is _beyond_ normal. I have no idea how I’m supposed to explain this to them.” She sighed, sheathing her zanpakutou. “But I have to.”

Pinching his lips, Ichigo said nothing further. He’d known as much before Rukia had even arrived on the scene. There was only so long an anomaly like Fenton could slide under the radar. He’d just hoped it could’ve been longer.

* * *

Turning invisible had never felt so satisfying. Body still twinging with pain from that konsou or whatever it was Rukia had stamped on him, Danny flew away as fast as he possibly could.

Aside from the light show, Danny hadn’t been aware of much else aside from pain and the fact that he had gotten glimpses into what must’ve been the afterlife. And it had looked kind of dull. It didn’t look at all exciting, what with the houses apparently made out of thatch and normal looking people running around.

Of course, considering that this was a different dimension, Danny thought it was likely that the afterlife where _he_ came from was different. He could hope anyway. It wasn’t like shinigami existed in his world; he’d have seen them before if that was the case.

One thing that did bug Danny was the Box Ghost. If this was a different dimension, the only way the Box Ghost could possibly be here was if he’d gotten a ride the same way they had. And the only way to find that out was to ask him directly.

Mind made up, Danny angled straight up to open sky where no one could see two ghosts having a chat with each other.

Once he was high enough that the air was getting a bit thin even for him, Danny pulled the thermos out and uncapped it, pressing the release button. With a torrent of bluish-white light, the Box Ghost popped out. Danny hurriedly capped the thermos before the hollow could come out.

The Box Ghost looked rather confused for several seconds before catching sight of Danny. “You!”

“Yeah, me.” Danny gave him a little wave. “Nice seeing you.”

Looking around, the Box Ghost folded his arms and narrowed his eyes at Danny. “This isn’t the Ghost Zone! Why have you released me here?”

“I’ve got some questions for you.”

Now the Box Ghost looked really suspicious. “What questions do _you_ have to ask the most feared Box Ghost?”

Danny barely managed to keep himself from face palming. He did sigh. “How’d you end up here?”

The Box Ghost opened his mouth immediately, apparently to resume one of his infamous tirades, but then he shut it, actually looking considering. He scratched the back of his head, mouth twisted in thought.

Finally, he said, “I am confused. How _did_ I come here?” After several more seconds thought on this, the Box Ghost gave it up in favor of proclaiming, “The Ghost Zone is overrun! Masked monsters have invaded!”

Hollows? In the _Ghost Zone_? What did that mean for Amity Park?

“Explain,” Danny demanded.

And, surprisingly enough, the Box Ghost did.

* * *

“Boxes!” The Box Ghost hovered before a door, shoving a jewelry box through it. “More boxes!” But there were no more boxes around.

Skulker floated by him, glanced at him once, and rolled his eyes before flying away.

His girlfriend wasn’t so kind. “Your yammering on boxes is driving me nuts!” Ember shouted. “SHUT IT!”

The Box Ghost wasn’t cowed. “My boxes of doom will destroy you!”

He regretted this retort the moment a pink fist from Ember’s guitar slammed into him, knocking him into the room he’d stashed his boxes in. He poked his head out and shouted defiantly, “You have not seen the last of me! For I am the Box Ghost!” He floated out and added, “Beware!”

“You’re _going_ to shut up,” Ember said threateningly. “Or—” She froze, looking at something just beyond the Box Ghost. Her eyes widened in obvious fear. “RED ALERT!” 

The last time a red alert had been issued was when Pariah Dark had gotten out.

Gulping, the Box Ghost looked behind him to see a giant masked monster howling in his face. He let out a high-pitched scream of terror before scampering away as fast as he possibly could. For once, his constant fights with Phantom were coming in handy.

He’d barely gotten anywhere before slamming headlong into a frazzled Skulker.

“They’re everywhere!” Skulker shouted to the surrounding ghosts. “Band together and fight!”

“Tasty souls,” something growled below them.

Instantly on guard, both Skulker and the Box Ghost looked down to see a very pleased looking monster licking its lips and looking at them in a way neither of them liked.

The monster bared its teeth. “Come to Papa.”

The Box Ghost puffed himself up. “I am—”

Skulker shoved him away to fire an ecto-gun at the huge monster, hitting it directly in the mask, shattering it. The monster howled in agony for a few seconds before gradually dissipating. “Hm… Interesting.”

Skulker’s musing was cut off by the appearance of another monster that fired a red light at both of them, apparently enraged at the death of its comrade.

With the practice that came from going up against Phantom on a regular basis, Skulker and the Box Ghost turned intangible, letting the red light pass harmlessly through them. After closing its mouth, the monster looked absolutely dumbfounded.

“You should have been destroyed!” it screamed.

Skulker raised an eyebrow. “What world do you come from? We turned intangible.”

“Must have tasty soul!” the monster roared, swiping at Skulker, who dodged with longstanding ease.

The Box Ghost lifted his hands, summoning a legion of crates that appeared from nowhere. “You shall die from crates of doom! Flee now or—”

“Suffocate from boxes,” Skulker suggested.

“Suffocate from boxes!” the Box Ghost said gleefully.

“It actually worked,” Skulker muttered disbelievingly, shaking his head. “Ember owes me a new rug.”

The Box Ghost was too engrossed in pelting the monster with his boxes to see several others creep up on them. Skulker was not and ended up shooting his weapons at them.

“SOULS!” the monsters howled, evading Skulker’s attacks.

“What kind of ghosts are these creeps?” Youngblood demanded, zooming overhead with his own entourage of masked monsters.

“Less talking,” Skulker grunted, destroying another monster with a pot shot to its mask, “more fighting!”

Doing an abrupt about-face, Youngblood sprayed the monsters with toxic gas that looked like toxic gas. “Eat my dust, landblubbers!”

“Landlubbers,” Youngblood’s parrot corrected.

Youngblood looked confused. “What’s the difference?”

Spectra faded into view next to the Box Ghost, her shadowy form looking rather frazzled. “What are these things and why are they attacking us?”

“I don’t think they’re ghosts!” Johnny 13 shouted in answer, zooming by on his motorcycle, dragging a small masked monster by a chain.               

“What else can they be?” Spectra hollered to his retreating form. No answer was forthcoming.

“Argh!” Skulker was knocked into the distance by a tail whack from a particularly ugly monster.

“Beware!” the Box Ghost shouted, flinging a crate at the monster that had knocked Skulker out of the fight. When it was swatted away and followed by a fiery glare, the Box Ghost realized he was in rather big trouble. “Er…beware?”

The masked monster promptly chased after the Box Ghost, who fled, wailing.                  

Engrossed as the Box Ghost was in the monster directly on his back, he didn’t notice the door leisurely floating in his path until he hit it face first. Dazed, he whimpered, rubbing his smarting face.

He remembered too late that he was in the middle of being chased. Unfortunately, he had just enough time to turn around and see a blinding red light before it hit him.

Screaming in fear, the Box Ghost slammed into something solid. Whimpering lightly, he lay there for several minutes, shivering violently. Eventually he realized that he was relatively unharmed and it was quiet. There was also grass in his mouth.

Sensing he wasn’t in the Ghost Zone anymore, the Box Ghost warily looked around, only to find that he was somewhere else. He didn’t know where he was, but it was entirely free of monsters.

It took the Box Ghost all of two seconds to decide what his next move would be. Rising up several feet into the air, the Box Ghost drew astonished stares from passer-bys.

Seeing his audience, the Box Ghost raised his arms and shouted, “BEWARE!”

Taking the hint, they ran, screaming.

* * *

“So you saw a red light, ended up here, and started terrorizing people?”

The Box Ghost shrugged. “Yes?”

It was a long shot, but Danny felt he had to try. “Do you have any better idea of what happened? If there’s a way back?”

“There is no sign of the Ghost Zone here,” the Box Ghost said. “No portals, no ghosts, no monsters. Just boxes!”

“I kinda gathered that last bit.” Danny rolled his eyes, tossing the thermos up in the air before catching it. “If that’s all, you’re going back in.”

“You cannot trap me in that non-square container! For I am the Box Ghost!”

“I bet you ten boxes I can.” Danny uncapped the thermos and sucked the ghost in before he could protest. “And now he owes me ten boxes.”

* * *

“The konsou did not work?” Yamamoto-Genryuusai Shigekuni, taichou of the first division and head of the entire Gotei 13, stood before a window, listening to Kuchiki Rukia’s tale about what had happened earlier.

“No, sir.” Rukia kept her head low. “At first, it looked like it would, but when it finished, the spirit was still present. Kurosaki Ichigo stood by me during the attempt.”

Yamamoto sighed and opened his eyes. He turned around, tapping his gnarled cane against the wooden floor. “Is there anything else?”

“Kurosaki Ichigo also reported to me the presence of a strange spirit who could apparently control boxes. More I do not know.”

Yamamoto’s eyes cracked open slightly. “Troubling indeed. You may leave.”

“Yes, sir.” Rukia left the room, leaving Yamamoto with his fukutaichou, Sasakibe Choujirou.

“What do you think, soutaichou?”

“We need more information.” Yamamoto banged his cane against the wooden floor. “The appearance of these spirits merits great discussion. Call a meeting of the Gotei 13.”

“Yes, sir.” Choujirou left the room to dispatch the jigokuchous.

“Disturbing indeed,” Yamamoto muttered, turning once again to watch over the Seireitei.

* * *

“What are the casualties?” Skulker grunted, hiding behind a ledge as a masked monster ran rampant, chasing after several green blobs of screaming ghosts.

“Box Ghost has disappeared, Spectra is injured, Johnny 13’s bike was trashed,” Ember rattled off the numbers, “Youngblood’s parrot lost a wing, and a few ghosts have been eaten.”

“Eaten?”

“Eaten,” Ember confirmed.

“Think we should ask the ghost boy to help?” Technus asked the hunter. He had a bandage wrapped around his head.

“He hasn’t been seen lately either,” Ember said. “Bertrand went to the human realm to check things out there, but those monsters are also running around and Phantom is nowhere visible, ghost or human.”

“Insolent whelp,” Skulker muttered, trapping a monster in a glowing net. It had tried to sneak up on them. “Just when you need him he isn’t there.”

The attack had been entirely unexpected, and with the sudden shock, they’d had no time to regroup or gather their forces. For every monster they destroyed, several more popped up, scattering or injuring the ghosts. They were also devilishly fast, meaning the ghosts with little or no combat experience – namely the ones who didn’t go to Amity Park to be defeated by Phantom – were quickly taken out.

Now the veterans – the ones who _did_ have combat experience – were grouped together, trying to formulate some kind of plan so they could get the upper hand.

“RUN!” Technus suddenly screamed. He vanished.

“Oh snap.” Ember’s eyes widened. “That is one ugly dude. Bye.” She vanished as well.

“What?” Confused, Skulker turned around in time to see red light shoot directly towards him. “Oh crud.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Box Ghost didn't tell Ichigo about the "masked monsters" as he didn't know Ichigo. He does know Danny, so he has no qualms about telling him the truth.
> 
> Please leave a comment! :)


	5. More Problems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't my _favorite_ chapter, but there are some good lines in here? It was worse before I rewrote it.
> 
> That said, hope you enjoy it! Grad school's started back up, so I'm not too sure about updates.

 “Lemme get this straight…the _Box Ghost_ told you that there are monsters in the Ghost Zone?” Sam asked Danny in their apartment.

 “Yes!” Danny nodded. He had been explaining to his friends for the last forty-five minutes about what had happened from the top, including the stuff with Ichigo and Rukia. “They’re hollows, and they’re not _supposed_ to be there if we’re in two different dimensions, but there they are!”

“Something’s eroding the walls between dimensions,” Tucker noted thoughtfully.

“Really?” Danny asked.

“I dunno.” Tucker shrugged. “It sounded cool, though.”

“It also sounds plausible,” Sam said. “But that doesn’t tell us _what_. We haven’t got all the information we need.”

“Somehow I don’t think the library’s gonna help us here,” Danny said, sighing.

“Screw the library,” Sam said emphatically. “You’re seriously going to need to stop going ghost, Danny.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Danny shuddered in remembrance of that konsou. “ _Ichigo’s_ told me to lay low, and he doesn’t even know me!”

“As much as I don’t wanna trust him,” Sam said, “I admit we need to.”

“This sounds like a weird sort of comic,” Tucker said, making a face. “Seriously. Death gods and hollows? Crossing over to the other side?”

Danny snickered. “Tucker, our _life_ is a comic book.”

Tucker sighed dramatically. “Point.”

Sam dragged the conversation back on track by wagging a finger in Danny’s face and saying sternly, “No going ghost!”

Danny’s eyes crossed as he focused on that finger. Finally he just stuck his tongue out, meeting Sam’s eyes. “Yes, Mom.”

Sam kept her straight face for five seconds before breaking into a smirk. Her voice shaking in barely suppressed mirth, she said, “All kidding aside, we do need food.”

Danny gasped dramatically. “You want me to _steal_?”

“Says the guy who stole us all our furniture and attached our plumbing to our neighbors’,” Tucker said.

* * *

“Happy place, happy place, happy place,” Kon muttered, eyes shut closed tightly as he hid under the covers of Ichigo’s bed.

Yuzu hummed happily as she shook out the covers. Kon hung on by barely a hair. She gave it one more violent snap, sending poor Kon straight into the closet door.

“Ow,” Kon groaned, sliding down.

“Aw.” Yuzu picked up Kon by his leg. “He’s all dirty. Don’t worry, you’ll get a nice wash.”

Kon would never admit he mentally screamed for Ichigo.

“Hey, Yuzu,” said teenager greeted his sister. He stepped inside and saw her holding Kon. “Ah. I don’t really think he needs to be washed again, Yuzu. I…feel for him.” Ichigo refrained from shuddering at his last sentence.

“Take better care of him, onii-chan,” Yuzu said, handing Kon to her older brother. “It _is_ a treasured childhood toy.”

It had been _someone’s_ treasured childhood toy, but not Ichigo’s. Still, he plastered a smile on his face and waited for Yuzu to leave before he dumped Kon onto his bed. “Better be careful, Kon. Next time I might not be here to save your neck.”

“Ha! Who said I needed your help anyway?” Kon said snottily, standing up proudly. “I was doing fine on my own!”

Shrugging casually, Ichigo said, “All right. I’ll let you get washed next time.” He pulled out his math.

Kon looked suitably terrified at the veiled threat. “Ichigo—”

“HOLLOW! HOLLOW! HOLLOW!”

Still unused to the alarm, Kon flinched in shock. A second later a mischievous light appeared in his beady eyes. “Hey, Ichigo, maybe I could—”

“No,” Ichigo said instantly, not even letting him finish his sentence. “Nope. Not listening.” He pressed his badge to his chest, popping his shinigami form out. He placed it on the bed, giving Kon a look in warning. “Try to possess it, and you’re going to spend a week in pill form.”

“Ichigo!”

“Quiet already!” Jumping onto his windowsill and opening the window, Ichigo gave Kon one more look before disappearing in a burst of shunpo.

With a small whine, Kon flopped down onto the body’s chest. Why was everyone so cruel to him?

* * *

Skulker hefted up his armor, blinking once before realizing that he was still alive and not vaporized like other ghosts had been.

“Strange.” Skulker floated above a building. “I could have sworn I was about to be annihilated.” He flew directly along a street, not noticing that he was causing several accidents as people looked up at him in shock. “I must be _somewhere_ at any rate. …Perhaps that pitiful human can tell me where I am.” He floated over to a cowering man who was standing on a ladder, fixing a broken light over the street. “You. Where am I?”

“G-g-g-g-g—” the poor man stammered.

“I am Skulker, Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter.” He fired up an ecto-gun threateningly.  “I repeat, where am I?”

“JAPAN!” the man shouted, nearly falling off the ladder.

“What in the world is Japan?” The ecto-gun was blazing.

“Island in the Pacific,” the man replied, eyeing the gun apprehensively.

“Town name?”

“K-Karakura.”

“Not Amity Park?”

The man apparently decided he had enough of the strange apparition interrogating him and slid down the ladder. He pelted away before Skulker could apprehend him.

“Everyone can see you, you don’t have a mask, and you’re glowing,” a new voice with a strange accent cut in. “Let me guess…you’re a ghost. And not a spirit, but a _ghost_.”

Skulker turned around to see an orange-haired teenager with a huge sword strapped to his back glaring at a badge in his hand. “This thing must be defective or something.”

“Who are you, orange child?” Skulker asked.

“Orange child?” The teenager looked insulted. “I’m Kurosaki Ichigo, substitute shinigami!” He flapped his badge at Skulker as if it meant something. “My turn. Who are _you_?”

“I am Skulker, the Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter,” Skulker announced. “What is a shinigami?”

“I should make a brochure or something if I keep meeting ghosts like this…” Kurosaki rolled his eyes and put on a long-suffering expression. “I help spirits – or ghosts – cross over.”

Skulker’s eyes narrowed. “I will not return to the Ghost Zone!” Never mind he had no idea where it was at the moment because he couldn’t sense it. “Of course…” He stroked his chin thoughtfully, eyeballing Kurosaki’s muscular figure. “I have never heard of a shinigami before. It must be a rare prize indeed.”

Kurosaki looked rather wary. “No, not really.”

“Now, now.” Skulker grinned wickedly. “There’s no need to be shy. I handle my rare prizes exceedingly well. I have had no complaints.”

Kurosaki seemed rather doubtful. “Aren’t…aren’t they dead?”

Skulker beamed. “Exactly!” He fired up all his weapons.

“Okay, that’s…that’s new.” Kurosaki squinted at him, taking his sword off. He ducked an instant later as Skulker shot an ecto-ray at him. “Hey!”

“Such an unwieldy weapon,” Skulker sneered, giving the sword a disdainful look. “Missiles are much more manageable.” To prove his point, he shot a dozen of said missiles against Kurosaki, only for all of them to miss as Kurosaki vanished in a black blur. “Curses!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kurosaki said from behind Skulker. “Am I a bad prey?”

Skulker turned, grinning. “Quite the contrary. This will make the hunt most amusing.” He backed off before Kurosaki could hack any parts off with that evil-looking sword. “A prey that can teleport is most valuable indeed.”

“It’s…it’s not teleportation.” Kurosaki had a weird look on his face. “It’s called shunpo; I’m just moving really quickly.”

“Oh.” Skulker was oddly disappointed. Speed was nothing new. “Well, no matter. You are still a valuable prey that will be a fine addition to my collection.” He turned invisible.

Kurosaki broke out into some truly impressive cursing, the likes of which Skulker had not heard before. His head whipped around, evidently trying to spot Skulker.

“It would seem you are not very intelligent,” Skulker observed, turning intangible the moment Kurosaki’s sword slashed through him. “So close.”

“Where are you?” Kurosaki demanded inanely.

“As if I’d tell you,” Skulker huffed, leisurely flying behind Kurosaki.

Kurosaki whirled around, nearly chopping Skulker’s head off.

“If the elementary ghost powers defeat you so easily, you are rather poor prey,” Skulker mused. “What a strange creature this shinigami is.” He couldn’t help but reach out to brush a hand through Kurosaki’s orange hair. “And what a strange color of hair…”

Faster than Skulker could retract his hand, Kurosaki snagged him. “Ha!” Gazing through Skulker, Kurosaki grinned broadly. “Judging from that outfit, you’re full ghost, so that means this should work. Happy crossing over!” He stamped a seal on Skulker’s forehead, showing remarkable aim for someone who couldn’t see his opponent.

Turning visible, Skulker yelped in pain. “My armor!” Smoke fizzled out from the stamp Kurosaki had made.

In seconds, Skulker was enveloped in brilliant white light. Squinting through it, he could make out dirt roads and what looked like ragged children and adults lying on the sides of it. They all looked rather sad and hungry.

Wincing, Skulker closed his eyes, hoping for it to soon be over. It didn’t take long before the pain gradually faded away, and he could blink his eyes open to meet an astonished Kurosaki’s gaze.

Gaping, Kurosaki’s mouth worked soundlessly.

Giving Kurosaki a distinguished arched eyebrow, Skulker turned invisible.

Now Kurosaki reacted. “Oh _shit_. What the _hell_.” He looked mad enough to throw his sword down. “Is this my life now? Ghosts that won’t cross over and everyone can see? Peachy!” Scowling, he turned on his heel and disappeared in a black blur.

His arms folded across his chest, Skulker observed the spot the orange child had last been. “You have a strange power, orange child… Perhaps some reconnaissance would be in order.”    

However, since Kurosaki had run off without leaving a note, this would be a bit difficult. Unless his sensors had managed to pick up his signature…

Tapping his arm, Skulker peered at the readouts for several seconds before breaking out into an evil grin. He had everything he needed to hunt Kurosaki down.

Turning his tracking detector on, Skulker followed the trail Kurosaki had left to a normal house. Slowly floating to the window where he could see an orange head of hair pop into view, Skulker was surprised to see _two_ Kurosakis.

“Glad to see you didn’t run off anywhere, Kon,” he heard Kurosaki say.

“How could I?” Skulker heard an annoying voice cry. Not seeing the source, he came closer to peek in, only to note with astonishment and glee that it was a stuffed animal. A _moving_ stuffed animal! _That_ would be a rare prize. “I didn’t want to spend a week in pill form!”

Kurosaki shot the stuffed animal a flat look but said nothing else, instead walking up to his identical copy. Then, much to Skulker’s shock, he stepped inside it. A second later, the body sat up straight, walking and talking exactly like Kurosaki.

Interesting… So this Kurosaki Ichigo was a half-ghost as well? And not even the usual kind of half-ghost either. He would be a most interesting addition to his collection.

Flying off, Skulker contemplated whether he should have Kurosaki reside in a cage, have his pelt rest at the foot of his bed or hanging on a wall, or simply hack off his head and keep it as a trophy. So many choices, but which one would be best?

* * *

“Danny!”

“Wha-what?” Danny forced himself awake, barely noticing the crinkling of plastic as he shifted on the couch. “What’s wrong?” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

Something fell on his face. “ _This_ is!”

Slapping at the thing that had fallen on his face, Danny grabbed hold of it to see it was a newspaper with a picture of his ghost form on the front page. It was of him in the middle of some sort of office, rubble surrounding him. He looked rather dazed.

The headline brazenly read GHOSTLY APPARITION OR STUDENT PRANK? Then in smaller print it blathered on about potholes in the street, a blue man who had attacked people with boxes, and some sort of robot that had attacked a city worker. While some were insisting it was the work of ghosts and the supernatural, others were just as staunchly insisting it was nothing more than a very good prank carried out by students with too much time on their hands.

“You know when the picture was taken?” Tucker took the newspaper from Danny’s hands, looking at it himself.

“Uh…” Danny rubbed his forehead, searching his memories. “Yeah… First day of school when I went after another hollow. Some guy managed to get a picture when I crashed into a building. Funny. I would’ve thought they’d publish it immediately, not several days later.”

“To be fair, it’s pretty hard to believe,” Tucker said. “Then we’ve got this robot…” He flipped the newspaper, pointing at the print. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Skulker?” Danny asked. “Or Technus?”

“Yeah.”

Sam wasn’t paying any attention to them, looking rather distressed for other reasons. “You realize that this is the _opposite_ of laying low? This is plastering your presence like a giant billboard all over the world!”

Danny grimaced, rubbing his hands through his hair. Wincing as they caught on a knot, he began working it out. “I know, Sam. I know.”

“This has been one disaster after another,” Sam continued angrily. “First Ichigo finds out you’re _half-ghost_ , when you _know_ you’re not supposed to tell anyone, then some shinigami tries to make you cross over to the other side, and now this!” She tore the newspaper out of a startled Tucker’s hands to throw it into Danny’s face. “We’re not gonna be able to keep a low profile at this rate!”

“Sam, keep it down,” Tucker whispered. “The walls are thin!”

“I’m doing my best, Sam!” Danny’s voice was just as loud as Sam’s. “Ichigo saw me from the beginning. He put two and two together; it’s not like he’d have believed me if I went and said, ‘No, sorry, you just imagined that white-haired ghost turn into me!’ And you think I _wanted_ that girl to send me to the afterlife?”

“Oh snap,” Tucker muttered, shooting worried looks at the wall. “Lover’s spat, lover’s spat…”

Both Danny and Sam rounded on him. “We’re not lovers!”

“Then quit acting like it!” Tucker whispered loudly, throwing his hands up. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we don’t actually _live_ here, so being quiet would be a start! Sam, it’s not Danny’s fault this happened. Danny, Sam’s stressed.” Piece said, Tucker turned and flopped down on his couch, staring mulishly at the ceiling.

Staring after Tucker, Sam and Danny avoided each other’s eyes for a minute until tentatively facing each other.

“I’m sorry,” they blurted out simultaneously.

Chuckling lightly, Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess this whole traveling between dimensions thing has us all kind of stressed.”

“Yeah…” Sam looked rather sheepish.

“Made up now?” Tucker propped himself up on his elbows. He didn’t wait for an answer. “What do you say to takeout since we don’t have a working kitchen?”

“Not sushi,” Danny and Sam said at the same time.

Smirking, Tucker slid off the couch and to the window where the fire escape was. “And you say you’re _not_ lovebirds.”

He was gone before they could react.

* * *

“Aw, great, Skulker’s gone, Box Ghost’s gone – not that he was much help, anyway – Klemper’s mysteriously disappeared, Johnny’s officially out of commission…who else have I missed?” Ember peered over a stone ledge to look at the masked monster that was ferociously battling it out with Youngblood and his crew. Only an hour ago Youngblood would’ve had no problem with the monster, but they were getting stronger, and the ghosts were only getting more panicked regardless of what the higher ranking ones could do.

And while legends said that the Ancients would emerge when the Ghost Zone was in trouble, nothing had showed. Which went to show that it was all a load of bull and they had to fend for themselves. They were doing just fine with that, aside from the fact that they were slowly but surely being outnumbered by the hollows. Not every ghost had brilliant aim, and sometimes they only had one shot to destroy the mask before the monster ended up being assisted by several others and they had to scram or be eaten.

“You forgot to add that Spectra fainted from an overload of misery,” Kitty added frankly.

“And I still don’t get how that’s possible,” Ember said. “I mean, come _on_ …she’s _supposed_ to feed on misery and searches all over the place for it! Now these pathetic masked monsters pack such a punch that she _faints_ from it?”

“I wouldn’t call them pathetic,” Kitty said. “I mean, what happened to _your_ boyfriend? Isn’t he supposed to be the Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter?”

“That’s what _he_ says.” Ember and Kitty turned invisible as a masked monster floated by, howling as it chased after several blobby ghosts that were screaming for their lives. She continued, “I couldn’t care less what happened to the bozo, but it’s a mystery. He got hit by something red and disappeared.”

“You didn’t defend your _boyfriend_?”

“I didn’t see _you_ anywhere when Johnny got wasted,” Ember shot back.

“I was fighting another one of those creeps. I managed to gank it when I saw what happened.” Kitty shivered once. “Then I wasted that one and got him someplace safe.”

Ember and Kitty flew out from behind the ledge as a masked monster came uncomfortably close to where they were hiding. It was an unusually large one, and neither one of them wanted to give away their position so soon.

They regrouped a little later with several other ghosts, among them being a victorious but rather battered up Youngblood and the remnants of his crew, Ghost Writer, Technus, Bertrand, a few ecto-pusses, the Lunch Lady, and a few of Walker’s goons.

“These things are easy to take down,” Ember said. “Why the heck are they whooping our butts?”

“I’ve run the numbers,” Technus said. “Every single one we take down is replaced by five more. We’re being outnumbered. The ones attacked by that red light disappear entirely, but they’re not destroyed.” He brushed back a stray strand of hair, tucking it back into his mullet. “I don’t know where they go.”

“We must defeat them, for a lovely future,” the Ghost Writer said. He frowned. “That doesn’t rhyme. Darn it.” He started to scribble down something on some paper that he whipped out of nothing.

“Where’s Walker?” Ember asked a goon. “He was responsible for rounding up the lower level ghosts and keeping them safe.”

The goon shrugged. “Dunno. He disappeared while making sure the prison was fortified. I was making sure his orders were carried out when the prison blew up into bits by a really big one. We got it,” he added proudly.

“But what do these things _want_?” the Lunch Lady asked. “They’ve said nothing!”

“SOULS!” a monster howled in the distance.

“Then they came to the wrong place,” Kitty said, her arms crossed over her chest. “None of us are souls.”

A new voice cut in, cool and smooth, but gravelly. “It’s not souls we’re after, though those goons would think so with their lack of brains.”

Terrified, they turned as one to see what looked like a monster with wings grinning at them. It was smaller than the ones they had seen before, but there was a glint of intelligence in its yellow eyes not present with the others.

“Then what?” Ember ventured to ask, fingers tightening around her guitar.

The monster flashed a toothy grin. “Why…just you, of course.”

That was the point they realized they’d all made a mistake in exposing their backs.

The Ghost Zone filled with the sound of screams that abruptly cut off, a faint wave of red light spreading out across the distance before it faded entirely.

* * *

Skulker blasted a nearby stop sign. “Ecto-guns check.” Skulker’s arm converted into a missile gun and he shot several missiles. “Ecto-missiles check.” The hunter shot two glowing blue nets and entrapped several nearby pedestrians, who froze with terror at finding themselves encased in a glowing net.  “Ecto-nets check. Although I do wish I hadn’t wasted those on those pathetic humans.” He grinned. “Now, the hunt can commence and that orange child’s pelt will be lying at the foot of my bed. Or his head as a trophy on my wall. Or perhaps in a cage…”  He was still indecisive about what to do.

Contemplating what he would do with Kurosaki took up Skulker’s thoughts the entirety of the trip to where his sensors said Kurosaki was now. He ended up at a school building, not surprising considering Kurosaki’s apparent physical age.

He flew up to the window, shielding his ecto-signature with a prototype device. It was still in the experimental stage, but should suffice to shield him from that badge sense Kurosaki had been nattering on before about being defective. Skulker allowed himself enough time to check that Kurosaki was indeed present before he turned tail and put distance between himself and Kurosaki.

It was best not to risk revealing his presence when he could so easily snag Kurosaki at a more opportune time.

* * *

Ichigo had just begun to nod off when the bell rang, jerking him out of his stupor. Quickly checking the board to note the homework the teacher had assigned, he gathered up his stuff and went outside to meet his friends before going home. He needed to update them on what had happened yesterday after being unable to do so before at lunch.

“I’ve got something to tell you guys,” Ichigo told Ishida once they were in the hallway.

“Strangely enough, so do I,” Ishida said dryly. “Let’s go then.”

They met in an empty and sunny hallway that practically nobody used.

“Had some pretty crazy stuff going on yesterday,” Ichigo started.

“Today as well,” Ishida said calmly, holding up a newspaper. “Or didn’t you see the news?”

Ichigo muttered a quiet curse when he saw Fenton’s ghost form on the front page. “That’s Fantomu.”

“You were right, Kurosaki,” Ishida said. “He doesn’t look like a shinigami.”

“He isn’t. And…” Ichigo double-checked to be sure there wasn’t anyone here who shouldn’t be. “I couldn’t tell you guys this since Rukia was here, and I didn’t want to put her in a tough spot. But Fantomu – he’s not exactly a ghost.”

Ishida shot him a look. “He’s a spirit.”

“No, he isn’t. He’s – well, you’ve seen Fenton. Fenton’s Fantomu.”

Ishida gave him a long, disbelieving look. Then… “Impossible.”

“You’re looking at someone who looks human and works as a shinigami,” Ichigo said, annoyed. “And I’ve seen Fenton turn into Fantomu. I talked with him two days ago – told him you guys can help him out if a shinigami goes after him.”

“We’ll help,” Inoue said promptly.

“How do you know he isn’t dangerous?” Ishida demanded.

“He isn’t, Ishida,” Ichigo said, though he wasn’t 100% certain; he’d just promised Fenton that his friends were a safe haven, and he was going to make sure they were. “He’s only gone after hollows since I’ve seen him, or other ghosts.” He gestured at the newspaper. “There were two yesterday. One controlled boxes, and the second looked some kind of robot. He didn’t show up for the robot, but he did take care of the box one.”

Inoue frowned. “A _robot_?”

“Surprised me, too,” Ichigo admitted.

“Did a konsou work on them?” Ishida asked.

“Not on Fenton. And it didn’t work on the robot either, so it’s not because Fenton’s human that it didn’t take. They’re not _normal_.” He made a face. “Though my badge keeps going off around them.”

“Maybe it’s defective?” Inoue suggested.

“I wish. Whenever it’s gone off, it’s definitely because a ghost’s around. Does the same with hollows, so it’s not like it’s _not_ working. It’s working _too_ well.” But then it had never gone off with Fenton… Because he was human?

“I have the feeling Soul Society will appear at one point or another,” Ishida said. “Even with your precautions.”

“It’s not even a feeling,” Ichigo said, snorting. “It’s a guarantee. Rukia’s already gone back to report this.” Thankfully _without_ the fact that Fenton wasn’t entirely human; not that she knew who he was anyway. “I’m just trying to make sure Fenton’s safe. I don’t know him, but Soul Society’s not gonna like him.”

“He’s different,” Ishida said. “Of course they won’t. Anything else, Kurosaki?”

Ichigo shook his head. “Not until Rukia gets back or Soul Society shows up. Just let me know if Fenton pops up in that form.” He nodded at the newspaper.

“No problem! I have a telescope at home I can use!” Inoue enthused. “I’ll search the skies!” She looked down at her watch. “I have to go now, so I’ll see you later! Bye, Kurosaki-kun!”

Ishida folded up the newspaper, tucking it beneath his arm. “I must leave as well. I will see you later, Kurosaki. Try not to get into trouble – of either form.”

“Yeah,  yeah.”

“You’re all right, Ichigo?” Chad asked, studying Ichigo steadily.

“I’m fine,” Ichigo answered honestly. “Just a bit confused by what’s going on. Not exactly normal even by our standards.”

“It’ll be fine,” Chad said confidently. “We’ll face it together.”

Smiling, Ichigo nodded at his friend and watched him leave. Sighing, he leaned back against the wall for several minutes before he could muster up the will to leave. He had a spirit in a playground that he needed to perform a konsou on, and hopefully nothing else weird would happen.

This wish was squashed when the robot ghost showed up not even halfway on Ichigo’s path to the playground.

“Hello, prey,” the ghost said, appearing before Ichigo. “I see I didn’t set off that badge sense of yours.”

“ _You_!” Ichigo floundered for a moment, taken aback. Then the last part of what Skulker had said registered. “ _Badge sense_? Man, you are _really_ bad at making puns, aren’t you?”

Skulker shrugged. “Hunter, not a poet. And _you_ will be a pelt resting at the foot of my bed. Or on my wall. Or perhaps as a head on my dresser. Or perhaps even in a cage. I will give you the choice to decide. You should be honored. No other prey has ever had this honor.”     

Grabbing his badge to press it against his chest, Ichigo stepped out in shinigami form. “That is _really_ gross. Have you seen a doctor?”

“I would also appreciate your talking stuffed animal. I have never seen its like before.”

“ _Kon_?” Ichigo whistled lowly. “I think I got the number of a doctor who’d be willing to see you.” He raised an eyebrow at Skulker. “Here’s a question: if you’re the Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter, why don’t you hunt yourself? _That’d_ be a prize.”

“Not a bad idea.” Skulker actually seemed to be considering the idea. Then he shrugged dismissively. “But I can’t hunt myself. But you, a half-ghost, will be the perfect prize to show my enemy the ghost child that I _can_ hunt and don’t need video games to comfort my obsession with guns.”

Ichigo blinked. “I think I need a word with that ghost child of yours. He’s clearly hit the nail right on the head.” He lifted Zangetsu up, pointing it at Skulker. “And I’m not a half-ghost. I’m a _shinigami_. I’m a _spirit_.”

“You are a ghost,” Skulker stated.

“No, _spirit_.”

Skulker sniffed, deciding not to pursue that avenue anymore. “You have a physical body in addition to this one. As such, you are a half-ghost. You are the perfect prize, save for your astounding lack of intelligence.” He paused, eyeing Ichigo’s form lasciviously. “Which will make this _much_ easier.”

“I’m one of the top students in school!” Ichigo cried, insulted. “So, thanks, but I’m not gonna be that easy to take down. So that’s my answer: none of the above!”      

“Well, to tell you the truth, your orange hair would have clashed horribly with my tiger pelt.”

“You hunt tigers? Oh forget it.” Ichigo slid into his battle stance. “I don’t want to know what else you hunt. There’s such a thing as too much information.”

Skulker brightened upon seeing Ichigo’s stance. “Then you will fight? Excellent! Let’s begin!”

Then before Ichigo could react, Skulker had unleashed his missiles.

To be honest, Ichigo had to admit Skulker had a point. Missiles were a lot more versatile than Zangetsu. Sorry, ossan.

* * *

The Adjuchas hollow that had watched over the transportation of an entire group of ghosts to his original dimension sniffed imperiously as he dismissed the regular hollows he had purposed for the task.

He was about to fly off when a booming voice stopped him. “You sent the ghosts to the holding area.”

The Adjuchas crouched down on the ledge he was on, turning his head back to look at the ghost that had appeared. The ghost wore white form-fitting clothes. A white cloth mask covered most of his face except for his hard, calculating eyes, which were a burning red. His head was haloed in green flames, and at his side rested a white katana. “Was that not the point?”

“It was,” the ghost agreed mildly. “I just didn’t expect you to attempt to finish the mission so quickly.”

“I was getting bored,” the Adjuchas replied, standing up on two legs. “There are more interesting places in this dimension.”

“There are other areas in the Ghost Zone,” the ghost pointed out.

The Adjuchas shrugged, the movement awkward on his bulky frame. “I am not there. And there is another world adjacent to this one, ripe with the souls that these beings do not possess.” He looked at the ghost, eyes narrowed. “Would you hold me back from leaving?”

“You did your job,” the ghost said. “Make sure the others do as well.”

“Yes, Nai Samurai-san.” The Adjuchas bowed his head before turning and unfurling his wings, flying off.

* * *

“Owwww…” Johnny 13 groaned, unpeeling the bandages Kitty had wrapped around his shoulder. Green ectoplasm saturated the white cloth, but his skin was unmarred except for vicious scars. He winced at seeing the sight. “Damn monster…”

He flexed his fingers as he waited for his jacket to reform itself. Once it did, he wadded up the bloody bandages and threw them into a corner of the room. His shadow flickered nervously around Johnny’s shoulder, worried for his health.

“I’m fine,” Johnny said, patting down his jacket and checking for blood stains. He was clean of anything else. “Where’d Kitty go?”

His shadow shrugged, making a gesture that signaled it had no idea where his girlfriend had gone after Johnny had passed out.

Scowling, Johnny stalked over to his bike, reeling up the chain that was lying in a heap next to it. He’d last seen Kitty fighting off another monster while he’d been busy with three. He trusted her capabilities, but she should’ve been here. Or, failing that, should’ve at least left a note.

“‘Relationships need communication, Johnny,’” he mimicked Kitty’s voice, checking his bike’s tires. “‘How can I trust you if you don’t talk?’” His voice turned normal. “Here’s the thing, Kitty. Communication’s a two-way street, and you’ve just dropped the ball.”

Never mind there was a war going on in the Ghost Zone. They were together, and that meant they had to _stay_ together in situations like this.

Rubbing his head, Johnny winced as his hand came away sticky with ectoplasmic blood. He must’ve hit something hard for that to happen. Everything got a little fuzzy after he’d thrown one of the monsters into the other and had his shadow drag them away by a chain. Maybe the third one had gotten the drop on him?

Sighing, Johnny figured that he’d never find out what exactly had happened. At least he was alive; it was more than he could say for some other ghosts he’d actually seen get eaten. Walker had been supposed to round them up and taken them somewhere safe, but apparently the warden had never gotten around to it or had been preoccupied with other matters (read: giant masked monsters).

Cautiously cracking the door to his and Kitty’s lair open, Johnny peeked out. Seeing that the coast was clear, he warily poked his head out. He couldn’t hear any sign of the monsters attacking the Ghost Zone or see anything either. Slowly pushing his bike out, Johnny slung a leg over the seat and turned it on, making sure the engine didn’t rev as loudly as it usually did. His shadow flickered to his side, fading to invisibility.

“Come on, baby,” Johnny murmured, checking that the chain he’d been using against the monsters was hooked on correctly. Assured that it was, Johnny shut the door behind him and kicked the bike into gear, zooming off.

There weren’t any signs of other ghosts or monsters, and Johnny was getting a bad feeling.

On a hunch, he headed over to Walker’s prison. It didn’t take him long to arrive at the site, and what he saw had him hurriedly moving on, shock and horror roiling inside him. There was nothing left of the prison except for rocks, floating white rubble, and the foundations of where the building had been. There was also no sign of the goons or Walker himself.

“Not good, not good at all,” Johnny muttered, shooting one last look over his shoulder to where the prison had been.

He had no idea where any of his usual acquaintances were, and he didn’t fancy driving aimlessly around the Ghost Zone looking for them in case he ran into a masked monster.

That meant he needed to go to one of the more powerful ghost’s lairs. There were a few he could go to, but none he exactly trusted. He knew for a fact that Dora was close friends with Phantom, and he didn’t know how his reception would be even though the Ghost Zone was under attack. Besides, he had no fondness for dragons; they freaked him out. And likelihood was that he’d piss Dora off enough that she’d go dragon on _him_.

He could go to Pandora’s lair, but the Box Ghost had only found it by chance. Pandora wasn’t the type to have her lair out in public, and with monsters out and about, the chances of finding it decreased drastically.

And Pariah’s Keep was stamped with a big fat NO. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?

That left the Far Frozen…

Sighing in disgust, Johnny turned the bike in that direction. He _hated_ the cold…

* * *

He was driving over the River of Repulsion when he heard it.

A loud shrieking came from behind him, and Johnny looked over his shoulder to find a monster loping like a cat going right for him.

Swearing, Johnny revved his bike and gunned it. Looking down at the green water of the River of Repulsion gave him an idea, and he pushed down until he was driving several feet above the water.

The monster gave a loud shriek, and Johnny didn’t dare look in case his concentration was shot. He’d rather not be swallowed by the ghost guarding this river; no, that was for the monster.

Despite his plan, Johnny couldn’t help let out a scream when the monster nearly got him with a swipe of its hand. His bike jumped forward, and Johnny  had enough time to see the River of Repulsion’s ghost loom out of the water before he shot straight to the side at the last moment, turning back just in time to see the monster that had been on his heels get swallowed.

Gulping, Johnny turned and set off before the ghost could decide that a masked monster made for a really bad meal and spit it out.

Still, he’d scarcely gone a mile before something else popped into being right in front of him. With a startled yell, Johnny screeched to a halt, the ghostly version of adrenaline pumping through his body. He stared at the unfamiliar ghost that hovered before him, the ghost’s red eyes sending shivers running through his form.

“Who are you?” Johnny demanded, ready to take off at a moment’s notice.

The ghost’s voice was deep and ominous. “I am Nai Samurai.”

Blinking, Johnny opened his mouth, shut it, and then said, “Never heard of you.”

Nai Samurai shrugged. “Not surprising. I think the last time I was in the Ghost Zone was…perhaps when Pariah Dark still ruled? I was one of his generals, serving alongside the Fright Knight.”

Oh…darn.

“And what are you doing here now?” Johnny asked.

“Observing the hollows do their work,” Nai Samurai said simply. He cocked his head to the side, red eyes narrowed. “It is surprising that you are still here. Your comrades have long since been taken.”

Fear coursed through Johnny. “Yeah, I’m full of surprises.”

He couldn’t see Nai Samurai’s face from behind the white cloth covering it, but Johnny had the impression that the other had just given him a pitying look.

“Enough chitchat,” Nai Samurai said abruptly. “Where has the legendary halfa disappeared to?”

Swallowing, Johnny answered slowly, “You mean Phantom? What d’you want with him?”

“Merely to test my skills against him,” Nai Samurai said. “I heard he defeated the Fright Knight in single combat.”

And Pariah Dark, but Johnny wasn’t going to mention that if the other didn’t know that. If there was one thing Johnny _did_ know was that if there was trouble, Phantom was the best shot at fixing it. The kid might be a menace, but he got results. And Johnny wasn’t going to sell out their one shot at fixing whatever was going on here.

“He’s not here,” Johnny said finally. “Haven’t seen him in a while.”

Nai Samurai heaved a disappointed sigh. “Such a pity. I suppose that means I can’t play around here any longer.”

Johnny was instantly on guard. “Meaning what?”

Nai Samurai lifted up his weird sword. “Meaning it’s time for you to join your comrades.”

Whether or not Kitty was where Nai Samurai was planning on sending him, Johnny was _not_ going to go quietly. As fast as he could, he grabbed hold of the chain still attached to his motorcycle even now and whipped it towards Nai Samurai. The hook on the end looped around Nai Samurai’s feet, encircling them tightly.

With a hard yank, Johnny had Nai Samurai on his back. Without further ado, he gunned his bike’s engine and was off, dragging Nai Samurai behind him. He needed to get rid of him, but didn’t know how to do so without immediately having him on his tail.

He could hear Nai Samurai’s furious grunting and swears, but it wasn’t until he came in sight of the Carnivorous Canyon that a plan struck him.

Pushing more speed out of his bike, Johnny zoomed straight into the canyon, skidding his bike sideways.

“Shadow, now!”

The chain connecting Nai Samurai to the bike released, but not before Johnny completed one more spin. Carried by nothing more than inertia, Nai Samurai was swung directly into the canyon below, the walls of which closed the instant he disappeared into it.

“Oh, thank God,” Johnny breathed, exhaling in complete relief. “That was a close one.” He leaned back, sharing a grin with his shadow. “Good one, Shadow.”

Giving the Carnivorous Canyon one last look, Johnny set his bike back to rights and took off for the Far Frozen. It wouldn’t be much longer before he got there. He only hoped that the natives – who literally _worshipped_ Phantom from what he heard – would take kindly to him seeking refuge there.

* * *

In Karakura Town, Japan, an average brown-haired man with an average life was walking down a street in an average part of the town. He just passed by an alley before stopping after realizing that he had seen something strange. He backpedaled and looked again before wishing he hadn’t.

A fist closed around his shirt and lifted him up two feet into the air. The poor man stared into the face of one of the most terrifying apparitions he had ever seen.

Maybe it was a movie. It was definitely plausible that he’d been picked out to be an extra in a weird sort of horror movie. It was the only explanation he had for the being that was holding him up in the air.           

“Mortal,” the scary being ground out, “where am I?”

He could still hope it was a movie. The man gulped and stammered out, “K-K-Karakura.”

“Answer me this, mortal,” the being said again, “do you know what ghosts are?”

“N-no.” The man hoped it was the right answer.

“You’re looking at one right now.” The man had the horrifying impression that the being was grinning, even though the cloth covering the face prevented him from confirming this. “I suggest you run before I change my mind and decide to blast you to smithereens.” With that, the being let the terrified man run away as fast as his legs could carry him.

Humming quietly in consideration, Nai Samurai stepped back into the shadows of the alley. His red eyes scoured the cars on the street. “Karakura… This must be the place my master is so interesting in conquering.”

He certainly hadn’t intended on landing right in Karakura Town. After being flung directly into the Carnivorous Canyon because of that accursed ghost with the motorcycle, Nai Samurai had managed to break out of it by giving off enough ghostly energy that the Carnivorous Canyon had no choice to spit him out. Unfortunately, that had landed him directly in the gaping maw of a hollow that had made the poor decision to try to eat the canyon. That maw had had a cero in the making, hitting him in the face.

Which put him here, in Karakura.

Glancing to the side, he caught sight of a newspaper in a garbage can with a particular picture that was far too interesting to ignore. “What’s this?” Picking it up, he saw a dazed looking teenager in a black and white jumpsuit staring directly into the camera. If there was any doubt as to his identity, it was swept away by the infamous symbol on his chest.

“Well, well… It seems I’ve run right into this legendary halfa without even trying. This will be very interesting.”

As Nai Samurai disappeared from view, the newspaper he had been holding fluttered to the ground, green fire curling at its edges and gradually disintegrating it into ashes.

* * *

Rather than hanging out in their dark apartment, the three misplaced dimensional travelers were lounging at a bus stop. They weren’t obliged to take any buses that came, meaning that they could stay there for as long as they liked without anyone coming to shoo them away.

Sam would’ve preferred a coffee shop, but they all knew that they had to save any cash they did have in case of emergency.

They were doing some of the homework they’d been assigned and comparing answers when Danny felt a cold chill from his core push up through his throat and escape his mouth in a wisp of blue air. It wasn’t the first time it had done so today, and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d ignore it.

But it _was_ the first time a brilliant streak of green light illuminated the sky, catching the attention of everyone on the street. Looking up, Danny’s breath caught at the sight of a _ghost_ hovering in midair, a sword in his hand and green energy leaking from the blade.

The ghost swiped the sword straight down, and green energy emerged from the blade in a brilliant crescent to slam into the street seconds later, causing mass destruction and panic.

“Jesus Christ!” Danny grabbed hold of Sam and Tucker as the ground beneath their feet buckled and rumbled with the impact. “You guys all right?”

Tucker clutched his PDA close, eyes wide behind his glasses. “Oh yeah. Definitely. Completely.”

“That’s definitely a ghost, right?” Sam asked quietly, peering up at the ghost.

“Oh yeah,” Danny confirmed. He looked around for any sight of Ichigo or any other shinigami, and his heart dropped upon seeing absolutely nothing. “There’re no shinigami around. I might—

“ _No_ , Danny!” Sam and Tucker objected.

“Guys—”

“I WOULD SEEK COUNSEL WITH THE HALF-GHOST KNOWN AS DANNY PHANTOM!” the ghost shouted in a booming voice.

The three friends froze. Then, a second later, Sam and Tucker grabbed hold of Danny, clutching him tightly as if they could stop him from leaving just by rooting him to the ground.

The ghost wasn’t finished. “IF YOU DO NOT FACE ME, THEN THIS TOWN WILL FACE MY WRATH AND BE ANNIHILATED.”

“I don’t have a choice!” Danny hissed, shaking his friends’ grips off. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this.” He shot him pleading looks.

Biting her lip, Sam’s eyes flicked between the floating ghost and Danny. Finally, she swallowed and nodded. “Be careful,” she whispered.

Danny gave a small smile, nodding. “Yeah.” Making sure that no one was paying attention, he quickly transformed. But before he took off, he said, “Get out of here. See if you can get to Ichigo’s friends. If not, get somewhere safe.”

“We’ll try,” Tucker promised, stepping closer to Sam. “Good luck, dude.”

“Thanks.” Danny’s smile turned grim as he returned his focus to the ghost floating high above them. “I’ll need it.”

And then he was gone, shooting up to where he could meet the strange ghost on even footing.

“All right,” Danny said fiercely, “you asked for me, and you got me. So tell me what you want.”

The other ghost’s red eyes brightened in undisguised glee upon seeing Danny. “Oh, nothing much. Simply you.”

Danny wasn’t impressed. Folding his arms across his chest, he flicked his ghostly tail dismissively. “You got me. And since you know who I am, but I don’t know who you are…” He trailed off suggestively.

The other ghost actually straightened. “I am Nai Samurai.” There was pride in his voice.

Danny didn’t understand his pride. “I know what ‘samurai’ means, but ‘nai’?”

“In Japan, ‘nai’ is one word for ‘dead,’” Nai Samurai explained. “I was once known in the Ghost Zone as Fright Samurai, but my master changed it to be more fitting of my current status.”

“What? You’re dead?” Danny frowned, tilting his head to the side. “You’re a ghost, and not even one based off human energy.”

“Aptly observed, youngling. I guard the corrupt dead in my master’s realm.”

“Sounds…nice.” Danny barely refrained from making a face. He got to the point. “And the reason you just destroyed a street to get my attention?”

Nai Samurai lifted his sword, which Danny now recognized as a katana from his brief stint in school in Japan. “To challenge you in combat, Phantom. I heard that you defeated my old colleague the Fright Knight in single combat.”

Danny was taken aback. “You worked with the Fright Knight? I didn’t know he _had_ any colleagues.”

“It was a long time ago,” Nai Samurai said dismissively. “Long before the Ghost Zone became what it is today – when Pariah Dark still reigned supreme.” He sounded like he was grinning. “I’ve heard you are powerful, Phantom. You defeated Fright Knight, my equal in combat. I wish to challenge you in combat.”

“Er…” Danny had no idea how to tell Nai Samurai that all he had done was stuff the Fright Knight into a pumpkin with the help of his friends and some ghost fighting weapons. The only other time he’d encountered the Fright Knight was when Pariah Dark had been released courtesy of Vlad, and then he’d been too busy with the freaking _Ghost King_ to be concerned with a simple ghost of Halloween. Finally, he just settled on a simple no. “I don’t want to fight. It’s not my thing unless you’re terrorizing the neighborhood.”

“What if I told you that the Ghost Zone had been razed to ashes and your world lost?” Nai Samurai asked, his voice silky.

Danny’s heart skipped a beat. “What? When did that happen?”

Nai Samurai shrugged. “Who knows? Time being what it is between here and there, it could have days ago. Or perhaps mere seconds. But it has happened. Your world is lost, and because of my work. Do you have cause to fight me now, Phantom?”

“Are you trying to get me mad?” Danny demanded, his hands clenching into fists. “Because it’s working.”

“Good.” The tip of the katana pointed directly at Danny. “I, Nai Samurai, challenge you to a Ghostly Duel to the death. Any and all powers are permitted.”

“Dude, I don’t know if you know me, but I don’t _kill_.”

“A pity, because you have little choice in the matter here. Either you fight, or I will destroy you beyond any hope of recovering. Splitter will ensure this.” He hefted his katana threateningly.

“Splitter?” Danny asked, nodding towards the weapon. “That its name?”

Danny had the impression Nai Samurai was smiling. “Rest assured, Phantom. You will discover why it is called Splitter.”

Abruptly, he disappeared from sight and reappeared to his right, swinging Splitter in such a way that Danny’s arm would’ve been lopped off if he hadn’t twisted to the side, catching the sword by the hilt and wrapping his hand around the other ghost’s. He then tried to wrestle the katana out of Nai Samurai’s grasp, warding off the ghost’s other arm with his free hand.

It was only a second before Nai Samurai swung his right arm violently and sent Danny flying.

Twisting around, Danny stopped his flight, eyes widening when he saw a pink ectoplasmic blast head his way. He threw up a shield in the nick of time, blocking it. The moment he could, he dropped the shield, instantly following up with a ghost ray of his own.

His attack passed harmlessly through as Nai Samurai turned intangible.

Danny barely had time to react before more ghost rays were being shot his way. He dodged most of them, turning intangible for the few he couldn’t. Then, once he was clear, he charged towards Nai Samurai, hands glowing a bright green.

Splitter started to glow an eerie green, and just as Danny reached Nai Samurai’s position, the blade came down to hit Danny.

Ghost and blade met with a violent implosion of energy that exploded outwards with a loud _BOOM!_  

* * *

“Hey, Rukia!” a red-haired man called out. Abarai Renji, fukutaichou of the sixth division, ran up to Rukia, who’d paused to wait for her old friend. “Did you hear about the new spirits?”

“I was there,” Rukia replied. “In fact, I was the one who tried the konsou on the spirit.”

“It’s a mystery, isn’t it?” Renji fell into step with her. “I mean, spirits aren’t supposed to be seen by the general population, with the exception of the few with more reiatsu than average.”

“You’re right. It’s why the whole situation worries me,” Rukia said.

“Kurotsuchi-taichou can’t wait to get started on experimenting,” Renji said.

“I bet,” Rukia said dryly. “I pity the poor spirit who falls under his thumb.”

“Well, I don’t know. They’re malevolent, aren’t they?” Renji asked thoughtfully.

“It’s difficult to say at this point. They’re destructive, but I haven’t seen any indications of malevolence so far.”

Renji was about to press for more details when an alarm went off.  “ _Large spike in reiryoku in the human realm. All_ _taichou_ _and f_ _ukutaichou_ _please report. I repeat, all_ _taichou and fukutaichou please report._ ”

“Large spike in reiryoku?” Renji repeated. “Damn it. Sorry, Rukia. I gotta go.” Renji ran off, hanging onto his zanpakutou.

As he passed by other shinigami of lower ranks who were wondering what was going on, Renji couldn’t help but do the same. There had been a huge drop in hollow activity for months, but things were starting to pick up _now_? Not only that, but the weird spirits that even regular humans could see and a konsou didn’t work on. It was just too strange.           

Reporting for duty in the meeting room, Renji lined up to take his spot as the soutaichou called the meeting to order.

Briefly explaining the current situation in the human realm that no one had much information on, Yamamoto announced that Hitsugaya Toushirou, Matsumoto Rangiku, Kuchiki Byakuya, and Abarai Renji would be going to assess the situation and see what was going on. They were to confer with Kurosaki Ichigo if at all possible, but to otherwise not interfere unless absolutely necessary.  

It didn’t take much time before they were all prepared and ready to leave, but when they did arrive in the human world, Renji had to stop his jaw from dropping at the fight they interrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Favorite line? I personally like Ichigo's "Aren't...aren't they dead?" line.
> 
> Drop a note and let me know! :D


	6. Ghostly Battles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like this chapter more than the last. And it also sort of starts setting gears in motion that you'll see in future chapters!  
> Alas, there is still a cliffhanger at the end of this. But not as bad as the last one?

Sam and Tucker had every intention of following Danny’s request to get to Ichigo’s friends. There was just a little problem with that request. Or maybe more than one. And they realized that five minutes into stumbling across rumble and into other panicking civilians.

“We’ve no idea where they live,” Sam hissed to Tucker, pressing up against a wailing car that had been tipped over onto its side by the attack.

“Or their names,” Tucker added, frowning.

“And how we’re supposed to get out of here,” Sam said, looking up at where Danny and the other ghost were talking. She hoped he managed to get that taken care of fast before any shinigami could pop up and try another konsou.

“Just start walking?” Tucker suggested. “Didn’t Danny tell us Ichigo’s dad has a clinic? We could look for the address.”

“And ask what once we get there? ‘We’re very sorry to bother you, but could you please tell us who your son’s friends are and where they live? Why? Oh, no reason. We just need their help because our friend is currently going up against a ghost and shinigami want to get him to cross over to the other side!’”

“No,” Tucker said. “Just that we don’t have Ichigo’s number and he said his friends could help us get a job. Or something like that.” He made a face. “I haven’t really thought it out beyond that.”

A sudden commotion from above them had them looking up, eyes widening when they saw that Danny and the ghost were fighting.

“Not good,” Sam breathed.

“I think we need to head for cover,” Tucker said, grabbing hold of Sam’s wrist and tugging her along. “C’mon. That ghost doesn’t mind causing casualties, and we’re gonna need to be safe.”

“We can’t hide inside a building. You know how that well works with Danny!” He always crashed into them; it was luck that no one in Amity Park had gotten hurt from Danny’s accidents.

Tucker looked around, eyes brightening when he caught sight of a manhole cover. “Well, you know what they say with tornadoes. Get underground or as close as you can!” He rushed to the cover, prying it open with no trouble with a little help from Sam. Most other civilians had gone, sensibly running away for their lives.

“Of course,” Tucker said, screwing his nose up as the fumes from the sewer wafted into the air, “I’m gonna regret this decision in about thirty seconds.”

“Best idea you’ve had yet!” Sam said, looking back up at the fight taking place above their heads. “And I think we should go now. Because I get the feeling an explosion’s gonna be taking place.”

Danny was charging towards the ghost with absolutely no care for the sword the ghost was wielding. And both Danny and the sword were looking kind of green.

Wordlessly, Tucker followed Sam into the sewer, closing the cover above him as he slowly climbed down the ladder. Below him, Sam grimaced at the smell of the sewers. It was absolutely disgusting. Taking care to breathe through her mouth, she pulled out a small flashlight from her backpack to illuminate her surroundings. She stood on a small ledge that ran along the wall, allowing them to keep their feet dry.

Tucker pressed himself close to her, looking rather green in the light.

“This is really disgusting,” Tucker groused, tugging back his beret as he pulled out his PDA. He turned it on, thumb dancing over the buttons.

“You get reception down here?” Sam asked, surprised.

“A little,” Tucker said, pulling open a news site that was covering the fight. “Enough so we can get a gist of what’s happening out there.”

Their surroundings gave an ominous rumble, and some dust and rubble fell to the ground around them. They froze in alarm, but when nothing else happened, they heaved a silent sigh of relief.

“Let’s hope it works out,” Sam said, flicking her flashlight off to conserve battery. Huddling up next to Tucker, she peered down at the small screen that was currently their only source of news for what was happening with their friend.

* * *

“Ugh.” Danny flew backwards about twenty feet before managing to stop. “That hurt.” He clutched his chest, where a gaping slash was evident. It stretched from his shoulder to about midway through his torso, dripping ectoplasm.

“You’re amusing.” Nai Samurai flew in towards Danny. “I can’t believe Fright Knight was defeated by a wimp like you.”

Danny let the sword pass through his belt before grabbing the other ghost’s hand to prevent Splitter from slicing him again. Quickly preparing a ghost ray, he let it loose and blew the other ghost backwards. He gave Nai Samurai no time to react, speeding through the air to punch him in the chest.

The attack didn’t even faze Nai Samurai, who knocked Danny back with the hilt of Splitter. The retaliating attack hit Danny directly in his wound, and he cried out in pain.

Clutching his dripping chest, he inhaled raggedly, pain pounding through his nerves. “What do you want?” He hadn’t gotten a straight answer last time; maybe he could get one now.

“What do I want?” Nai Samurai raised an eyebrow. “I want to defeat you. I want to raze your world to ashes. I want to claim the crown and become the new Ghost King of the Ghost Zone.”

“The king’s time is past,” Danny shot back, feeling his gloves grow wet with his own ectoplasm. His fingers gave a short spasm before he stilled them, digging them into the skin around his wound. “They don’t need or want one.”

“I think you will find that they will have very little choice in the matter,” Nai Samurai said silkily.

“Doesn’t matter,” Danny said. “They’re not the type to just shut up and accept it. _I’m_ not going to allow it.”

“They are incapable of protesting,” Nai Samurai said. “As are you, weak as you are. The Fright Knight _must_ have lost his touch to lose to one such as you.”

The wound in his chest was almost healed now, and Danny took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I’m not that easy to take down,” he said calmly. “It’s been a while since the Fright Knight fought me, and you know what?” He shot the other a grin. “I’ve only gotten better.”

With no warning, he shot a blast of ice at Nai Samurai, freezing his legs in ice.

“Feeling a bit chilly?” Danny taunted.

Nai Samurai looked down at the ice encasing his legs. Without a word, he brought his katana down and shattered it. “That was ice?” His voice was dark. “It wasn’t even cold.”

Ohhh, darn. Great. Danny was going to need to pull something _awesome_ out of his hat to beat this guy. Despite his talk, he knew full well that the only reason he’d gotten the better of the Fright Knight before was because of his friends. The Fright Knight was still miles above Danny’s skill level, no matter how much he had improved since that time he’d stolen the ghost’s sword.

About to fire another blast of ice at Nai Samurai, Danny’s eyes widened when he saw the crescent arc of green energy that cut through the air. He immediately dropped ten feet, letting the attack fly harmlessly over his head. When he did so, though, he ran directly into Nai Samurai, who had flown underneath his attack.

Danny had no time to react before Splitter cut directly through his right shoulder.

Blinding pain tore through his arm, and Danny screamed, clutching his shoulder. His arm was impossibly still attached to his shoulder.

And Nai Samurai was about to lop off something else.

Eyes watering, Danny took his hand off his aching shoulder long enough to fire a ghost ray directly into Nai Samurai’s chest, throwing him backwards. Then, looking down at his arm, he was dimly surprised to find that it was still in one piece. There was also no ectoplasm or any other sign to show that Nai Samurai had just sliced through it.

But he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t even move it.

Panicking, he looked up at Nai Samurai. “What did you do?”

“Splitter,” Nai Samurai answered simply. “Why do you think my weapon was named thus?”

“It…splits?” Danny swallowed, hand pressing into his shoulder. He could feel nothing below the area where Splitter had gone through.

“Obviously.” Nai Samurai sounded bored. “It splits whatever it cuts from the rest of your body. It separates the object from the consciousness of the mind.”

 “Oh, terrific.”

Nai Samurai’s response was whipping Splitter down in an arc; a crescent arc of green energy shot out from the blade, heading directly to Danny.

Flinging himself to the side, Danny dodged the attack, throwing up his left hand to fire off a large ghost ray at Nai Samurai.         

Danny wasn’t at all surprised that Nai Samurai dodged it, but he was rather insulted that the action was so _lazy_. It was as if Nai Samurai didn’t even care.

And then Nai Samurai whipped Splitter around erratically. The resulting energy blasts that emitted from the blade went everywhere, and Danny had barely enough time to turn intangible before they blasted through him and everywhere else.

Including the town below them.

The energy from Splitter collided into buildings and sent them tumbling over each other, causing a chain reaction as one building crashed into another and another. Within a matter of seconds, several whole blocks were destroyed.

Danny could barely believe what had just happened. His voice was low as he demanded, “ _What did you do that for_? They’re not involved in this! It was _you_ and _me_ , and _they_ had nothing to do with it!”

Nai Samurai tilted his head to the side. “And are you going to stop me?” The question was soft.

“You know what?” Danny straightened, face set in stone. “I will.”

Relishing how Nai Samurai’s body stiffened in response, Danny shot him a smirk before closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, focusing all his energy into one special spot.

Then, eyes flying open, Danny unleashed his most powerful attack: the ghostly wail.

* * *

It didn’t take very long before Ichigo was pissed off. Because, really, Skulker was annoying. If only because he wouldn’t let Ichigo beat the crap out of him. Ichigo was more than fast enough to kick Skulker’s ass, but the problem was that Skulker would either let the attacks slip right _through_ him or turn invisible and sneak up on Ichigo.

And since Ichigo’s reiatsu sensing abilities were complete and utter crap, those sneak attacks tended to work.

Then again, did Skulker even _have_ reiatsu?

Ichigo didn’t have time to wonder about this as Skulker let loose another missile at his head. Ichigo ducked to let it fly over his head, and promptly winced when he heard Hitsugaya Toushirou’s voice roar out his name.

Glancing over his shoulder, Ichigo was surprised to see Abarai Renji, Hitsugaya Toushirou, Kuchiki Byakuya, and Matsumoto Rangiku standing there, watching his fight with rather stunned looks on their faces.

“Oh, hey,” Ichigo said, giving Skulker an absentminded slash with Zangetsu. He made a face when it was dodged. “What are you doing here?”

Toushirou scowled, but said, “There was a large spike in reiryoku that alerted Soul Society; we’ve come to see what it was.”

Ichigo shrugged, looking back at Skulker, who was observing them all with a thoughtful gleam in his green eyes. The look made him shiver, and he turned back to the shinigami. “Can’t be me. I haven’t done much aside from trying to get him.” He gestured at Skulker.

“Why haven’t you done a konsou?” Renji asked, eyes flickering between Ichigo and Skulker.

“Tried to, didn’t work,” Ichigo said. “He’s not a spirit.”

“Of course he’s a spirit!” Renji sounded disbelieving. “He doesn’t look human!”

With great dignity, Skulker said, “I am a ghost. Are you the same type of breed as the orange child?”

It took all of a second for everyone to realize he was talking about Ichigo, and then no one could miss the shit-eating smirk crossing Renji’s face.

“I dunno,” Renji said, smirking at Ichigo. “Are we, orange child?”

“Shut up,” Ichigo snapped, feeling his ears burn. “If I were you, I wouldn’t answer that question.”

As expected, Byakuya didn’t listen to him. “What do you mean by breed?” he asked, frowning slightly.

Skulker shot a nasty grin in Ichigo’s direction. “You didn’t tell me there were more of your kind, orange child. I suppose these are half-ghosts as well?”

“We’re spirits,” Toushirou said sharply, his hand going to the hilt of his zanpakutou. “Kurosaki is a kind of his own.”

Ichigo groaned in dismay. “Why’d you go and say that? Now he’s never gonna stop!”

This garnered him strange looks.

Skulker seemed to ignore Toushirou’s statement, studying something on his arm. “What rare prizes. Energy signatures slightly different to that of the orange child, but still similar enough.” He looked up, grinning. “I can certainly add you to my collection.”

Matsumoto looked wary. “Ne, what’s he talking about?”

Ichigo sighed. “You don’t want to know.”

“Should I have your pelts on my walls?” Skulker mused. “Or should I keep your heads as trophies?”

“Oh…ew.” Matsumoto shook her head in disgust.

“Did he just imply he was gonna skin and behead us?” Renji asked.

Byakuya seemed to have enough of the chitchat, unsheathing his zanpakutou and calmly calling out, “Chire, Senbonzakura.” His blade started to dissipate into thousands of pink petal-like blades, the tip fading first.

“Fascinating,” Skulker said, sounding absolutely sincere. “Flower petals used as a weapon.”

“You are just _asking_ to be killed,” Renji said.

“They’re not flower petals,” Ichigo said.

“He does have a point,” Matsumoto said, drawing everyone’s attention except for Byakuya’s. “They are pink and look like petals…”

Much to Ichigo’s surprise, Byakuya didn’t look over at Matsumoto. His laser focus was on Skulker. “If you surrender,” he said calmly, “you will not get hurt.”

“If I don’t surrender, there’s nothing you can do to me,” Skulker pointed out. “As the orange child can confirm.”

“See.” Ichigo swung Zangetsu at him, only for the blade to go through the suddenly bluish-white ghost.

“That won’t stop us from containing you,” Toushirou said flatly. “There are kidou we can use.”

Skulker frowned. “What is a kidoo?”

Shrugging in response to the “what-the-fuck” look Renji shot his way, Ichigo took several steps back as Byakuya stepped forward, Senbonzakura’s small blades fluttering around him. They began to congregate in a precursor to an attack, but before they could, a thundering noise filled the air.

“What was that?” Toushirou demanded, whirling.

Squinting, Ichigo looked in the direction of the downtown area of Karakura. There was smoke in the air, and he thought he saw green.

“Oh shit,” he murmured.

“That’s probably the cause of the spike in reiryoku, taichou,” Renji observed, looking over at Byakuya.

Further observation was cut off when a terrifically loud moaning hit their eardrums. Ichigo could practically taste the vibrations in the air, and it felt like his bones would shatter. Cringing, he reached up to cover his ears, the movement hampered by Zangetsu.

“What is that?” Ichigo shouted, struggling to be heard over the noise.

Also covering his ears, Toushirou whirled to Skulker. “What did you do?” he demanded. “What is that?”

“What makes you think _I_ know?” Skulker shot back, expression pained and hands over his own ears.

“There’s no reiatsu,” Byakuya said, not covering his ears at all. There wasn’t even any pain on his face. Ichigo wondered if he was doing something funky with his reiatsu to shield his eardrums. “But it’s incredibly powerful.”

The moaning cut off seconds later, leaving them all frozen for several seconds as they waited to see if it would return. When it didn’t, they exchanged glances.

“Let’s move out,” Toushirou said, his aquamarine eyes flickering between Ichigo and Skulker. “The problem isn’t here.”

As the others shunpoed away, Ichigo hesitated, eyes on Skulker.

The ghost gave him an unimpressed arched eyebrow. “I will not stay to meet the ghost that holds that power.” Then he disappeared from sight.

“Huh.” Ichigo was confused for all of a second before he realized his decision had been made for him and he followed after the other shinigami in a blur of shunpo.

* * *

Green sonic waves erupted from his throat and rent the air, the vibrations shaking everything in the area. A sound like hundreds of ghosts moaning broke the air’s stillness.

The ghostly wail was terrifyingly powerful, one of the attacks Danny was always leery to use because of the destructive potential behind it. It varied depending on the amount of energy and focus he put into it, but it was destructive regardless of what he did. Aside from the destruction it wreaked, it also exhausted Danny’s energy reserves, leaving it as a last resort.

It had been a while since the last time he’d used it, meaning his energy reserves weren’t dwindling as quickly as they usually did because he’d gotten stronger. But they were still running down, and Danny tightened his focus, strengthening the wail for a few more seconds before he cut it off, closing his mouth and inhaling deeply through his nose, letting the air out slowly through his mouth.

Several more deep inhalations followed as he tried to catch his breath. He couldn’t help the smirk that crossed his face as he saw how ragged Nai Samurai looked. The flames around his head were entirely extinguished, and the cloth that had covered his face was gone. Danny blinked upon seeing how his face looked.

Nai Samurai’s face was a literal skull, grinning teeth and all. When the cloth had covered it before, all Danny had noticed was that his eyes were red and the skin white. He glanced over the rest of Nai Samurai’s body, but he could see nothing else; his hands were gloved and the rest of his body hidden beneath his clothes.

Voice pained, Nai Samurai glared at Danny as he growled out, “What matter of attack was that, Phantom?”

Danny grinned, running a hand down his sticky front. “My ghostly wail. You like it?” His response was a scowl, and Danny had to snicker slightly. He pulled his thermos out, uncapping it. “Ready to go, Nai Samurai?”

Though his teeth were forever set in a grin, Danny could tell that Nai Samurai was _really_ grinning now. “Not in the least, Phantom.” He started to glow green. “Did you think I didn’t have any more tricks left?”

Danny stiffened, alarmed. “Oh crud.”

He had enough energy for another ghostly wail, but considering what had just happened, it really wasn’t worth it. He could throw it at him and then suck him in immediately, but chances were he could crack the thermos open unless Danny could find something else to stash him in.

“Prepare to be annihilated, Phantom,” Nai Samurai declared, the green glow silhouetting him changing into fierce flames. “Splitter—”

“HYAAH!” A figure kicked him down mid-word. “Take that, spirit!”

Danny blinked at the figure’s appearance. It was a woman with reddish-blonde hair and a really, really big…bust. Her black clothes fluttered in the wind, and her gleaming sword was held directly at Nai Samurai’s neck.

“Nice entrance, Matsumoto-san,” another voice said. This one belonged to a spiky red-haired man with tattoos covering his face; he had a yellow bandanna on and his hair was tied in a ponytail. He looked over at Danny, eyebrows raised. “Who’re you?”

“Fantomu,” Ichigo’s voice answered. He appeared next to Danny, one hand clenched around his enormous sword. He looked down at Danny, brown eyes skimming over Danny’s green-splattered front. “You all right?”

“Yeah.” Danny made a face as his right arm still refused to respond to him. “I mean, right arm’s dead, but other than that, yep. Good.” His left hand rubbed his shoulder. “Who’re you guys?”

Two other shinigami stepped into view, one much smaller than the other. They wore white coats over the distinctive black robes of a shinigami.

“The police,” Ichigo said dryly when no one else answered. “Or something like that.”

“Who caused this?” the white-haired kid demanded angrily, his eyes pinning Danny to the spot.

Danny shook his head instantly. “Not me.” He gestured at Nai Samurai with his only working arm. “It was him.” He squinted at the kid. “And, um…aren’t you a little young to be a shinigami?”

The kid looked kind of upset at that insinuation. “I am not a child!”

“You look like one,” Danny couldn’t help but say, instantly regretting the words the moment they left his mouth.

Before the shinigami could retort, a green slice of energy from Splitter shot between them, the energy backlash ruffling their hair and clothes.

Danny’s head snapped around to Nai Samurai, who had pushed the woman off and was fending her sword off easily with his own.

“It seems the time is unfavorable for our fight, Phantom,” he said, giving Danny a dark look. “I shall return to continue our Ghostly Duel at a later and more favorable time.”

But Danny wasn’t about to let him leave so easily. As far as he knew, Nai Samurai was the only link he had to his home dimension, and he needed to know what was going on.

Firing a ghost ray directly at Nai Samurai, Danny followed it up with another one when the first was blocked by an ecto-shield. “What’s happening back home?” he demanded angrily. “Answer me!”

“It has been laid to waste,” Nai Samurai said, red eyes shuttering for a moment. Splitter glowed a bright green for a moment before he released an energy attack at the woman, who was forced to abandon her position or risk being hit. “Or did you not hear me before?”

“I heard you,” Danny snapped. “I just don’t believe you.”

Nai Samurai waved a dismissive hand, his form blurring out. “Believe me or don’t. It matters not. The one thing you should know is that you have not seen the last of me.” His face was the only visible part left as he ominously stated, “Or my master.”

Danny fired off one last ghost ray out of spite before sighing and turning to Ichigo. “He’s gone. Sorry about that.”

“Who was he?” the stern-faced black-haired shinigami asked.

“He called himself Nai Samurai,” Danny answered, shrugging with his one working shoulder. He winced as his right gave off tingles. Was it coming back to life? “I’ve never seen him before.”

“And you?” the kid shinigami asked. “Who are you?”

“He’s Fantomu,” Ichigo cut in irritably before Danny could say a word.

“Let him speak, Kurosaki,” the kid said sharply, shooting Ichigo a quelling look.

“He’s right,” Danny said, making a face as tingles spread throughout his entire arm. It felt like it was coming back to life after going to sleep, and it was _awful_. “Hi.” He lifted his left hand and wiggled his fingers. “Fantomu.” He purposefully used the Japanese word, not sure what would happen if he just said “Phantom.”

“And you’re a spirit?” the kid asked.

“Ghost,” Danny said, rubbing down his right arm. “Not spirit. Ghost. There’s a difference.”

“What?” the black-haired man said.

“I’m visible?” Danny shrugged. He could actually wiggle the fingers on his right hand now. “No one else sees you. And hollows are weird; they don’t work like ghosts.”

“Meaning what?” the kid asked.

“No flying or invisibility or phasing through stuff. Y’know, elementary ghost stuff.” Danny lifted his right hand up with his left, beaming when he could feel it. “Yes! It’s not dead!”

Ichigo seemed rather taken aback at his enthusiasm. “Was it dead?”

“Sorta!” Danny pinched the skin on his hand, grinning when it hurt. “But not anymore!”

Now the other shinigami were sharing perturbed looks.

“That moaning sound,” the kid started slowly, “what was that?”

Danny gave a sheepish grin. “That was me.” Rolling his right shoulder once, Danny rubbed it and gave it a few more experimental rolls, continuing, “D’you mind giving me your names? You know mine; I don’t know yours.”

“Hitsugaya Toushirou, taichou of the tenth division,” the kid said.

“Kuchiki Byakuya,” the black-haired man said, “taichou of the sixth division.”

“Abarai Renji,” the red-haired man said, “fukutaichou of the sixth division.”

“Matsumoto Rangiku, fukutaichou of the tenth division,” the woman said.

Frowning, Danny sounded the names out in his head. Japanese names had the last one first, so the names listed second were their first names. But what were the other terms they’d used?

“What’s a taichoo?” he asked slowly. “And…fukutaichoo?”

Ignoring the disbelieving looks the other shinigami sent Danny, Ichigo explained, “They’re heads of their divisions in Soul Society, and Renji and Matsumoto-san are second-in-command. It’s like a military organization.”

“So…” Danny squinted. “Captains and vice-captains?”

“Taichou and fukutaichou,” Ichigo agreed, using the unfamiliar terms.

Danny gave it up for lost, putting it up to that weird quirk that allowed him to understand and speak Japanese. “So what d’you want with me?” he asked instead. He made up his mind to never ever call them by their names.

Now the captains – taichou? – straightened even more, faces set in stone.

“We were called here to assess the situation,” the one he knew was called Toushirou said. “Your fight stirred up a massive amount of reiryoku, and we were uncertain as to what was causing it.” He gave Danny a significant look.

“Oh.” Danny wasn’t sure what the look meant. “Sorry.” He rubbed the back of his neck clumsily with his still-tingling right hand. “My fights tend to go hand-in-hand with property damage.”

Looking down at the destruction wrought by Nai Samurai, Danny had to fight down a horrible feeling. He had no idea where Sam and Tucker were…

“My friends,” he whispered.

“What?” Ichigo asked.

“They must’ve run, right?” Danny asked himself, pushing his palm into his forehead as he tried to push down the nausea. “I told them to get out, so they must’ve gone…” He took several breaths, trying to push down the panic. It wasn’t working.

“They ran, they ran, they ran,” he repeated, hugging himself now.

“Fantomu, what is it?” Ichigo asked, sounding alarmed.

Danny’s shout took him off guard. “Argh, who am I kidding? Of course they didn’t run!”

Turning his back to the shinigami, Danny took off for the ground. Sam and Tucker had to be all right.

They _had_ to.

* * *

The sewers _really_ stunk. But Sam had to admit that it was pretty safe. Whatever happened above, it wasn’t terribly likely that it’d go through the ground unless it had an extremely sharp point. Or collapsed the entire system, but Sam was trying not to think of that.

“Signal’s getting worse,” Tucker muttered, tapping the screen of his PDA. “Can’t do much from here.”

The image on the small screen fizzled once more before it turned entirely into pixels. That was the only warning they had before the entire system shook violently.

Terrified, they clutched at each other, breath coming in panicked exhales as it sounded like the whole town was falling down over their heads. Water lapped at the sides of the ledge they were standing on, but they could hear nothing beyond the fact that it sounded like Armageddon was at their doorstep.

When the noise finally died down, they didn’t let go immediately. The shaking stopped a few seconds later, and by the time the water had settled back down, they had marginally relaxed.

Slowly releasing her tight grip on Tucker’s arms, Sam swallowed thickly. “What…was that?”

“It sounded a bit like an earthquake,” Tucker said, also releasing his grip on Sam. He looked down at his PDA, which had turned dark.

“It wasn’t.”

“No.” He glanced up. “But that’d mean one of them knocked down a whole bunch of buildings.”

Sam couldn’t help giving a short disbelieving laugh. “Pull the other one, Tucker. That’s never happened before.”

“Neither has _this_.” Tucker gestured between them. “There’s not another explanation for what just happened, Sam.”

“We can check,” Sam said resolutely.

But they didn’t, because at that moment a terrible moaning sound reached their ears. It was horrific, and it once again had the entire system vibrating beneath their feet.

Her teeth rattled in her skull, and it felt like her eardrums would burst.

“N-no,” Sam stuttered, hands coming up to her ears. “The _wail_?”

“A lot more powerful than before,” Tucker gritted out. She couldn’t see if he’d covered his ears, but she’d bet her parents’ fortune he had.

It was several more seconds before the wail cut off, Sam turned her flashlight on to see Tucker match her horrified face.

“That can’t be good,” Sam whispered. “When’s the last time he had to use the wail?”

“Egypt,” Tucker said. “Against that giant sphinx.”

“Crud. We need to get out.” Pushing the flashlight into Tucker’s hands, Sam reached for the ladder, climbing as quickly as she could.

There was no light coming in from the holes in the manhole cover, and Sam had to squash the panic threatening to rise. Taking a breath of stinky sewer air, she braced herself and began pushing up.

When it didn’t move, she put more muscle into it. It budged a little to the side, dislodging some dust that tasted like stone, but refused to move anymore.

“Come on,” Sam muttered, tugging at it. “ _Move_.”

In a last-ditch effort, she jumped off the ladder to put all her body weight into dislodging the cover. All that resulted in was her falling back to the ground and nearly breaking her ankles. She fell backwards, almost toppling headfirst into the water before Tucker grabbed her wrist, hauling her back upright.

“Thanks,” she panted, bringing a hand up to brush her hair back. Her hand was trembling.

“No dice?” Tucker asked after a moment.

Sam barely managed to muster up the energy to shoot him a dirty look. “What’d you _think_?” She restrained a hysterical giggle. “We’re stuck in the sewer system!”

Tucker considered this for a moment before pointing out, “Not the worst place we’ve been. Remember that alternate future?”

Sam shuddered. “Don’t remind me.” That was also where they’d learned about the wail…

Tucker gave her the flashlight back, pushing his useless PDA into his pocket. “So now what?” His voice was subdued.

“We wait?” Sam suggested, rubbing her face. “We could be twenty feet under for all we know. How’s he supposed to find us? It’s not like he has a cell!”

“He’s got good hearing. We can always yell.”

“Until our voices get hoarse?”

“Best shot we’ve got. ’Sides, chances are that he’s gonna be looking for us anyway. We’ll probably hear him before he hears us.”

Sam was highly doubtful of this, but didn’t voice that. “We can hope.”

Danny had better not be dead. He’d gone through so much worse than this. He’d defeated the _Ghost King_. There was no way he was going to let some cheap ghost get the better of him.

…Right?

* * *

If Fenton’s friends were anything like his own, Ichigo had no doubt that they were somewhere below them. But thanks to the destruction, he highly doubted they were all right.

Considering that this was a pretty negative view, he kept this opinion to himself. There was no need to make Fenton completely ballistic. For one, it wouldn’t go over well with the other shinigami.

Hovering uselessly over the rubble of a building, Fenton rubbed his hands frantically through his hair. “How am I supposed to find them?”

“Your friends,” Toushirou said slowly, coming to a stop besides Ichigo, “were they here?”

“I told them to leave,” Fenton said, sounding distracted as he flew in zigzags over the rubble. “But they probably didn’t.”

“They’re probably dead,” Toushirou said bluntly.

“Taichou!” Matsumoto hissed in shock. “Did you have to be so harsh?”

But Fenton hadn’t done anything beyond shoot Toushirou a hard look. “They’re my friends,” he said coolly. “I _know_ they’re alive.”

“Odds of them surviving are pretty slim,” Renji said slowly, sounding rather regretful that he had to inform Fenton of this fact. “Especially considering…” He gestured demonstratively.

“We’ve beaten the odds before,” Fenton said fiercely, coming to a stop. “They can do it again.”

Looking down, mouth set in a firm line, Fenton began to shift some rubble around, occasionally calling out his friends’ names.

Sighing, Ichigo gave the other shinigami a look, seeing them raise eyebrows, before he turned to help Fenton.

Maybe the kid was right. Maybe his friends were alive. If it was at all possible, Ichigo would help him out.

* * *

“Anything?” Tucker asked for the fifth time.

“No,” Sam said irritably. “Like I said the _last_ time. Nothing. What about you? Getting any signal?”

Shaking his head regretfully, Tucker put his PDA away and leaned back against the wall, slumping over. “The little signal I had is gone.” He gestured up towards the ceiling. “We’re effectively blind.”

But luckily not literally, since Sam’s flashlight still had power. She held it tighter, leaning against the wall besides Tucker.

He was going to be all right…

“He’ll be fine,” Tucker said suddenly, and Sam realized that she had accidentally said that last bit out loud.

“We don’t know that,” she said instead.

“Come on, Sam. This is _Danny_ we’re talking about. He’s gone through worse.”

“Not in a different dimension,” Sam said darkly.

“He’s still Danny,” Tucker said reasonably.

“Meaning he’s a trouble magnet.”

“Magnets repel, so that doesn’t really make much sense,” Tucker mused, looking up. “Shouldn’t trouble run _away_ then? He’s probably a safety magnet…”

“Your physics are off,” Sam said. “Magnets attract metal. Make trouble a metal and Danny a magnet, and you’ve got a trouble magnet.”

“Right,” Tucker said slowly. “So…should we create trouble down here so Danny’s attracted to us?”

Sam couldn’t help but snort. “We _are_ in trouble, Tucker. Either he’s going to find us, or he isn’t.”

“I vote for he is,” Tucker said brightly. “Because I don’t fancy being stuck down here for the rest of our very short lives. Or d’you think we can walk out of here?”

“And get lost?”

“It’s just a sewer system.”

Sam shot a look into the dark tunnels around them, swallowing nervously. “Knowing what’s here,” she said quietly, “I don’t want to walk through this place. We can’t see these hollows Danny’s been talking about.”

Tucker nodded, glasses glinting in the dim light of his PDA. “So we wait.”

* * *

It had been about fifteen minutes since he’d started shifting through the rubble with Ichigo’s help. The other shinigami were practically useless, just hovering around with disapproving looks on their faces. But the one with tattoos actually looked kind of regretful.

With a grunt, Ichigo dislodged a car and rolled it over. There was nothing under it other than more rubble.

They hadn’t come across any bodies, but Danny didn’t dare hope that all civilians had cleared the area before Nai Samurai had destroyed several blocks. Besides, what if Sam and Tucker were lying underneath this rubble, crushed?

Or maybe they weren’t.

Sam and Tucker had gone through enough ghost fights in Amity Park to know the drill. They knew when to help and when to back off. So if they were going to back off, where would they have gone?

Looking down at his boots, Danny frowned.

“Ichigo,” he said slowly, catching the other’s attention, “does Karakura have sewers?”

Ichigo straightened from his kneeling position. “If we didn’t, then the entire place would stink,” he said bluntly.

“Can you access it from the street?”

Ichigo looked at him as if he was very slow. “Yes?”

“Okay then,” Danny said, nodding. “I’ll be right back.”

And then he turned intangible and phased through the rubble into the sewer system.

* * *

Renji yelped in surprise as Fenton disappeared through the rubble. “He’s gone!”

“Relax,” Ichigo said. “He’ll be back.”

Toushirou studied him with narrowed eyes. “You trust him,” he stated.

“Nooo,” Ichigo said slowly. “Not exactly… But he’s not just gonna up and run.” He hoped.

“That’s trust,” Renji pointed out bluntly.

“So maybe it is,” Ichigo said. “That a bad thing? He’s just a kid.”

“Taichou looks like a child,” Matsumoto said, ignoring the outraged “Hey!” her comment elicited, “but he isn’t.”

Further discussion was halted when Fenton, Manson, and Foley popped out from the rubble and solidified.

“Oh yes!” Foley cried, dropping to his knees and hugging a big chunk of stone. “Sweet air!” He _was_ kind of stinky…

Manson was more concerned with her friend. “You’re hurt,” she said, eyes fixed on the green soaking Fenton’s front.

Fenton made a face, pulling at the suit. “I _was_. Healed now.” He peered down at the green-soaked material. “But this is gonna be a pain to get out…”

Foley had flopped on his back and was sighing in utter ecstasy. “Sunlight…”

“Is your friend all right?” Renji ventured to ask warily.

Fenton shot an unconcerned glance over at Foley. “What, Tucker? Yeah, he’s always like that.”

This caught Manson’s and Foley’s attention, and they both looked sharply at Fenton. Foley was actually sitting up now.

“Who are you talking to?” Manson asked.

“Shinigami,” Fenton replied immediately. “Ichigo and his friends.”

“They can’t see us?” Toushirou asked.

Fenton looked over at him. “No. They’re normal.”

“I resent that,” Manson said, slapping Fenton’s shoulder. “We’re not normal! We’re friends with you, aren’t we?”

“You can’t see them,” Fenton pointed out reasonably.

“We’re still not normal!” Manson said indignantly.

“They’re mortals,” Byakuya said simply.

Perhaps wisely, Fenton didn’t repeat what Byakuya had said. “No,” he said instead, “you’re not.”

Foley stood next to Fenton now. “Do they want you to cross over again?” he asked nervously, looking in the general direction of where the shinigami stood.

“Er…” Fenton shot Ichigo a nervous look. “They just wanted to check out what was going on since we released a lot of energy with that fight.”

“How many are there?” Manson asked suspiciously.

“Five,” Fenton said instantly. He gave Ichigo a sheepish glance. “Didn’t catch all their names, but Ichigo’s there, and I think two are called Renji and Matsumoto?”

“We introduced ourselves!” Renji said indignantly.

“Yeah, but…” Fenton gave a sheepish grin, shrugging. “I’m really bad at names. And Japanese isn’t my first language, so…” He rubbed the back of his neck, still grinning sheepishly.

“He’s awful at remembering names,” Manson confirmed, speaking to a spot a foot next to Ichigo.

“If Japanese is not your language, where are you from?” Byakuya asked calmly, gray eyes studying Fenton.

“America,” Fenton said. “Amity Park, to be more specific.”

“And you’re in Japan why?” Toushirou asked.

“My friends?” Fenton gestured at Manson and Foley. “You wouldn’t believe the stuff they get into – it’s crazy – ow!” He winced, rubbing at the spot on his shoulder where Manson had punched him. “Jeez, Sam.”

“You’re more of a trouble magnet than we are!” Manson snapped.

“Eh…” Fenton had the reluctant look of a guy who didn’t want to admit he was wrong.

“And does America have ‘ghosts’”—Renji used air quotation marks—“like you? Is that a thing over there?”

“No shinigami assigned to the Americas has ever reported that,” Toushirou said. “Spirits are spirits regardless of physical location.”

“Ghost,” Fenton said irritably, “not spirit.”

“And what is a ghost exactly?” Toushirou said sharply.

“Something that isn’t dead for one!” Fenton took an exaggerated breath of air. “See?”

“Spirits breathe,” Toushirou dismissed. “It’s a habit from when they were alive.”

“Your _sprits_ are invisible! I’m not!”

“In any case,” Byakuya interrupted smoothly, “the issue remains that you are not human, Fantomu. Your friends are. We would be greatly interested in learning why exactly you – as a self-claimed ‘ghost’ – are friends with two average mortals.”

Aw, shit.

Fenton looked like a deer caught in headlights. He really needed to work on his poker face if he wanted to get anything by the shinigami. Ichigo couldn’t help him here, not without getting on Soul Society’s bad side. And if he was to help Fenton out if things went south, then he needed an in.

He hoped Fenton’s lying skills were better than his poker face, but judging from what he’d seen over the last so many days, they were bad.

“Uh…” Fenton bit his lip, rubbing the back of his head. “They’re really friendly?”

Oh, yeah. His lying skills were _really_ bad.

* * *

“You’ve returned, Nai Samurai,” a dark voice said from the shadows. All that could be seen of the source were the reddish-green eyes and a tall silhouette.

“Yes, Master.” Nai Samurai knelt down on one knee, his sword sheathed.

“I trust it was profitable?” his master said lightly.

“A large group of ghosts have been subdued and relocated to the holding area. There are still pockets of resistance in the Ghost Zone, but I predict that they will fall soon enough.” Nai Samurai hesitated slightly before continuing, “Other ghosts have apparently been taken to the dimension of Karakura Town.”

“Those can be captured again,” his master said dismissively. “I trust that nothing went awry, Nai Samurai?”

Nai Samurai was silent for a moment. Then, slowly: “I encountered the half-ghost in Karakura.”

His master’s voice gave nothing away. “Did he prove formidable?”

“Yes. He has much potential.”

“Naturally,” his master murmured. His voice raised as he asked, “Has he encountered the spirits of that realm?”

“He has met the shinigami,” Nai Samurai confirmed. “They interrupted our fight.”

“I cannot allow my actions to go reported to the shinigami,” the master snapped harshly, his eyes flashing a dangerous red that caused Nai Samurai to flinch in fright. “If they do, count yourself as extremely unfortunate.”

“Yes, Master.” Nai Samurai kept his head down, waiting to be dismissed.

His master said nothing for several long minutes, and Nai Samurai could hear his fingers tapping on stone. He stopped himself from shifting nervously.

“The hollows in the Ghost Zone are becoming a bit too curious about that castle,” his master said finally. “If he were to get out, it would be rather unfortunate, wouldn’t it?”

Recognizing the dismissal for what it was, Nai Samurai nodded and stood, bowing deeply. “Understood, Master.”

He had a mission to fulfill, and he would not fail. Danny Phantom could wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See! It wasn't that bad of a cliffhanger! It's just the shinigami and Danny! Danny's totally got this.
> 
> For the record, writing Ichigo's POV of the shenanigans Danny and company get up to is ridiculously fun. As is the opposite. These two universes are just a ball to mash together.
> 
> Also...the villain appears!
> 
> Please let me know what you thought!


	7. It's A Fright

There were three known castles in the Ghost Zone. One was Clockwork’s, master of time. This castle was, coincidentally, shaped like a giant clock tower and filled with hundreds of ticking clocks. It wasn’t one that was easily found; only the lucky stumbled across it, whenever Clockwork felt it was important that his castle be physically present in the time stream. Otherwise Clockwork’s castle was known of but never seen.

The second castle was the lair of the dragons. This was where Princess Dorathea reigned after she overthrew her brother Aragon with the help of Danny Phantom. This castle had been lost in the Dark Ages for millennia until Princess Dorathea took command. Not many ghosts went close to this castle for obvious reasons – mainly the dragons.

The last was the darkest and most forbidden realm in the Ghost Zone. This was Pariah’s Keep, where Pariah Dark was locked in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep and the Fright Knight rested, keeping watch over his former ruler. No ghost dared to go near this lair for fear of risking the Fright Knight’s wrath or waking Pariah Dark. They all too well remembered what it had cost the last time to lock him up, and Danny Phantom was forever revered in Frostbite’s Realm for his actions.

However, the hollows were not ghosts, and while they could sense that something ominous shrouded Pariah’s Keep, they didn’t know what it was. And being hollows, they investigated it.

Most were smart enough to keep a safe distance away from the castle, too wary of the miasma soaking the place. But some were stupid – or bold – enough to actually go inside. In this case, only two did so, creeping inside carefully.

They encountered no obstacles as they entered the throne room. And here they paused, because the sight of a gigantic sarcophagus and the black knight standing before it was terrifying compounded with the general atmosphere of the place.

“Who enters Pariah’s Keep?” the knight rumbled ominously. There was no sign of a face underneath his helmet, but his eyes were green crescents. A fiery purple cape shrouded his helmet and back.

Neither hollow responded, both too busy in gazing greedily upon the knight.

“Dumb, are you?” the knight mused, tilting his head as he observed the two. “Or perhaps simply overcome by the power shrouding this place even now?” He walked down the steps, putting himself on even footing with the hollows.

Now the larger hollow spoke. “We will eat you.”

“Will you?” The knight sounded amused. “That’s a first. Usually I’m threatened with a sword or – on one more memorable occasion – a thermos.”

The hollows didn’t seem at all eager to engage in witty banter. The larger took the initiative to jump on the knight, mouth open to chomp him down in one bite.

The knight didn’t hesitate, reaching out with one hand to seize hold of the hollow’s lower jaw and slam it into the stone floor. Then, keeping the hollow still, he took hold of the hollow’s mask with his other hand, slowly crushing the mask within his fingers.

Much to the smaller hollow’s horror, the mask of the larger crumbled into dust within seconds, and the hollow followed moments later.

“Interesting,” the knight said, looking down at his empty hands. “Not what I expected.” His green eyes looked up at the remaining hollow. “Are you next?”

Wisely, the smaller hollow turned tail and fled the castle. It sped past Nai Samurai as it rejoined the rest of the hollows that hovered a safe distance away from Pariah’s Keep.

“Had a fun time, did you?” Nai Samurai sounded darkly amused. “Perhaps that will teach you to enter places such as this.”

Another hollow roared.

“Yes, yes.” Nai Samurai sniffed disgustedly, his face once again hidden behind a white cloth. “I know you want to feed on the energies here, but the ghosts living here wouldn’t take too kindly to that. They would destroy you before you came within ten feet of their persons.”

As if to prove his point, a purplish streak flashed out of the castle and sped over to them, coming to a stop fifteen feet away from Nai Samurai. The knight from before floated there, a green sword clasped in his hand.

“Well then…” The knight sounded considering. “I had thought to follow the intruders to find out what sort of ghosts they were, but instead I find you. Fright Samurai, it _has_ been a while.”

“Fright Knight.” Nai Samurai’s voice was forbidding. “It is no longer Fright Samurai. I am Nai Samurai, and you would do well to address me as such.” He studied the Fright Knight’s figure. “I had thought you were sealed away, but I was wrong.”

“You weren’t,” the Fright Knight said. “But I suppose you didn’t hear about the Ghost King’s latest rampage. I was released, and have since then been guarding the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.”

“Is that so?” Nai Samurai tilted his head to the left. “I suppose the old goon won’t mind if  I claim his throne for myself then.”

“I think you’ll find that _I_ mind,” the Fright Knight said lowly. “What insanity has caused you to act this way, Fright Samurai?”

“ _Nai_ Samurai, Fright Knight,” Nai Samurai corrected harshly. “I grew tired of being the one who always carried out the orders and never giving them. Then I thought to myself…why can’t _I_ be the Ghost King?”

“Perhaps because the Ghost King’s time has passed. We are no longer in need of such a ruler, and the ghosts would not accept one.” The Fright Knight’s fingers tightened around his sword. “You’ll find a great deal of resistance should you try to take the throne.”

“Will I?” Nai Samurai asked, darkly amused. “There isn’t much left of the Ghost Zone, Fright Knight, in case you haven’t noticed.” He gestured out at the hollows at his back. “It’s an invasion, and you are the last.”

“That won’t work on me, Fright Samurai. You always were terrible at lying.”

Nai Samurai’s eyes narrowed at the other ghost. “It was worth a shot. Will you not step down?”

“I will not.”

“Then so be it.” Nai Samurai unsheathed Splitter. “Let us fight.”

“Are you so confident of your abilities?” the Fright Knight asked, holding his Soul Shredder up.

“You and I were once generals under Pariah Dark,” Nai Samurai hissed. “Do not be so bold as to think that you are better than me.”

“I outranked you. There was a reason for that.”

“Yes, and that reason was a poker game.” Nai Samurai’s blade glowed green. “Now this is me reclaiming my title and giving myself a long overdue promotion.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” The Fright Knight raised Soul Shredder up in time to block Nai Samurai’s oncoming strike.

Withdrawing slightly, Nai Samurai swung Splitter in a wide arc to try and chop off the Fright Knight’s head. The Fright Knight simply ducked and counterattacked by swiping at Nai Samurai’s legs, which promptly turned intangible.

Splitter glowed green, and the blade drew back before it was swung down in the direction of the Fright Knight. A large slice of green energy sliced through the air to strike the Fright Knight’s armor. The impact threw him back into the group of hollows that had circled around them. They immediately pushed him back into the fight with threatening snarls.

“Doesn’t this remind you of old times?” Nai Samurai asked reminiscently.

“In the old days you weren’t as ridiculous as this,” the Fright Knight shot back.

“You injure me,” Nai Samurai said in an insulted voice. “Regardless”—his voice became hard—“I think it’s time to close the curtains on this fight.”

“Do you really?”

“I do.”

“How will you do so? You have not bested me.”

“Simple,” Nai Samurai said, grinning. “I simply ask the hollows around us to finish the job while I sit back and watch.”

“You do realize that these hollows are nowhere near my level of power?”

“Well, yes, obviously.” Nai Samurai rolled his eyes. “But I don’t need them to destroy you or even defeat you. As it turns out, it’s so very, very simple to get rid of unwanted enemies.”

The Fright Knight’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you find out?” Without warning, Nai Samurai whipped his weapon down, sending an arc of energy straight towards Soul Shredder and ripping it out of its wielder’s hands. It soared towards the hollows. “Do show him, won’t you?”

A dozen hollows opened their mouths, forming cero and firing them scant seconds later. The beams struck the sword head on, and when the light had disappeared, Soul Shredder was gone, red sparkles glittering in its wake.

“My sword!” The Fright Knight whirled around to face Nai Samurai. “What have you done with my Soul Shredder?” he demanded furiously.

“Oh, nothing,” Nai Samurai said airily, twirling Splitter in the air. “I think you’ll soon catch up with it at any rate.”

The Fright Knight’s voice dropped dangerously low. “What?”

“Why don’t you find out yourself?”

The Fright Knight’s green eyes widened in surprise as the hollows surrounding the two rushed past Nai Samurai and converged on the Fright Knight, each forming their own cero. With a deafening roar, they all unleashed their attacks, hitting the Fright Knight head-on.

Nai Samurai watched with relish as his nemesis was vanquished to the other dimension.

“Perfect,” he said once the lights of the cero disappeared. “Now, be dears and try not to cause any trouble. This world has plenty of the spiritual energy that you like to feed on. Just don’t harm the mortals as they will be useful to my master.”

Orders given, the hollows scattered to the different areas of the Ghost Zone. With a satisfied glint in his eyes, Nai Samurai watched them leave.

* * *

A small circle of red light pulsed in the middle of the sky. Without warning, it expanded in a brilliant flash. When the light faded, a knight with a fiery purple cape hung suspended where the circle had been.

The Fright Knight shifted slowly, making certain all his limbs were in good condition before he slowly opened his eyes, ascertaining where he had been dumped. The last thing he remembered happening was being attacked by dozens of Fright Samurai’s lackeys and feeling space twist around him before he ended up here.

“Here” being somewhere in the countryside. The land below him was wooded, and the sky above him blue and dotted with white fluffy clouds. A distance away from him was a populated area with a gigantic white tower in the middle of it. The sunlight reflected off of the white stone of the tower, directly hitting the Fright Knight’s eyes.

“Where am I?” he muttered, descending until he was only a couple dozen feet above the treetops. “And where is my Soul Shredder?”

There was no sign of his sword in the woods below him, but if he stretched his senses outward, he could sense its familiar signature coming from the direction of the buildings. Location set, the Fright Knight turned invisible and took off.

As he drew closer, he realized that there were smaller rural communities bordering his destination. They seemed poor and rundown, and the people living there looked tired.

Upon entering the main compound, the Fright Knight was bemused to find that he was flying over what resembled a maze made out of low-lying white buildings. The people walking inside it were clothed in black and possessed swords. Some strolled with a purpose, while others were clearly lost as they kept running into dead ends and had to turn around and take a different route.

“How strange,” the Fright Knight mused, alighting on a roof and taking a closer look at his surroundings. “I have never seen such a place before. The energies here are strange…”

It was so much like the energies of the Ghost Zone, but much less…satisfying. Where the Ghost Zone was an oasis, this place was a desert. It wasn’t like the Fright Knight _needed_ energy – he had enough of it himself – but it was an interesting observation.

And his sword had landed here?

Once again stretching his senses out, the Fright Knight located the distinctive ecto-signature of his sword. He found it easily. It was close, but not so close that it would be simple to get it. Especially considering the people living here. He had no idea what kind of ghosts they were considering they lived in such a place, and he hadn’t lived for millennia simply to rush in half-cocked without a plan.

Still…

“Whatever being dares to lay a hand on my sword will regret it,” the Fright Knight intoned menacingly, eyes narrowing.

Retaining his invisibility, the Fright Knight took off in the direction of where his Soul Shredder lay, pondering what he should do if he found that it had been touched by one of the perversions living here.

* * *

“Kurotsuchi-taichou! This was lying in the street!” A young shinigami power-walked up to his taichou, holding out a green sword for inspection.

Eyes glittering, Kurotsuchi Mayuri, taichou of the twelfth division and head of the Shinigami Research and Development Division, looked down at the strange weapon. “Interesting,” he murmured, taking the blade from his subordinate’s hands. “I have never seen its  like before.” His yellow eyes met the shinigami’s. “Where did you say you found this?”

“I sensed a strange spike in energy,” the shinigami reported. “When I arrived at the source, I found this.” He hesitated slightly before venturing to ask, “What is it, taichou?”

“Why don’t we find out?” Mayuri grinned, flashing his perfectly even teeth. “Nemu!”

“Yes, taichou?” Kurotsuchi Nemu, the fukutaichou of the twelfth division, melted out of nowhere to stand at attention.

“Please take this into the lab for inspection,” Mayuri ordered, handing her the weapon hilt first. “I will be along shortly.”

“Yes, taichou.” Nemu inclined her head, took the sword, and was off in a blur of shunpo.

“I shall return to my duties, Kurotsuchi-taichou,” the shinigami said once Nemu was gone.

“Do so.” Mayuri dismissed him with an idle wave of his hand.

With a sweep of his white haori, Mayuri turned on his heel and strolled nonchalantly down a corridor. He couldn’t wait to see the results of the tests Nemu would run on the weapon. It had radiated some strange energy, and he was incredibly interested to find out what it was.

Ever since the ryoka had left Soul Society, he had been so incredibly _bored_. The Quincy was gone, and he hadn’t even had the decency to leave Mayuri with decent data! At least now he had something to study.

* * *

_“In any case, the issue remains that you are not human, Fantomu. Your friends are. We would be greatly interested in learning why exactly you – as a self-claimed ‘ghost’ – are friends with two average mortals.”_

_“Uh… They’re really friendly?”_

A silence fell after Fenton said this, and Ichigo barely restrained a disgusted groan at the awful lie.

Fenton winced, evidently realizing this as well. “That’s not what I meant,” he said quickly. “I mean, yeah, they’re friendly and that’s a bonus, but that’s not the point! What I meant to say was that they’ve helped me out loads of times with ghosts. Familiarity breeds friendship, right?” He looked rather hopeful as he said this.

“Are they asking why we’re friends with you?” Manson asked.

“More like why _I’m_ friends with you,” Fenton said. “Since you’re human.” He looked like he expected to be smacked for that remark.

“Oh.” Manson rolled her eyes. “That’s _easy_. There’s no need to be shy, Fantomu.” She turned in the general direction of the shinigami, addressing the ground before Toushirou’s feet. “He’s saved our lives _loads_ of times! We’d be ungrateful if we didn’t find a way of returning the favor.” She paused, frowning. “They can hear us, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Fenton confirmed quickly.

“So you’re friends because of a debt?” Toushirou asked.

“We’re friends because of a debt?” Fenton repeated.

“What?” Foley yelped. “No! We’re not like _that_.”

Manson elbowed Foley in the side. “Where we come from,” she said, “we’ve got loads of ghosts. They tend to attack on a regular basis, and Fantomu’s the front line of defense in returning them to where they come from.”

“Which is?” Toushirou demanded.

“It’s sort of an alternate dimension,” Fenton said, scratching the back of his head. “If I could explain it properly…it’s like…houses? So we’ve got this dimension”—he gestured with one hand, laying it flat—“and then we’ve got where the ghosts live.” He laid his other hand over the first. “There’re portals allowing them access to this dimension; I just stuff them back in.”

“A plausible explanation,” Byakuya conceded. “Except that there is no such thing as ghosts.”

Fenton looked insulted. “I resemble that remark!” He jabbed his thumb directly over that odd insignia on his suit. “Ghost here!”

“Is it possible that the reason you’ve never heard of ghosts is that they don’t like you?” Manson asked.

Fenton shot her a surprised look. “You heard him?”

“I guessed,” Manson admitted. “You’ve told us that they don’t know about ghosts; I took that and your reaction.”

“Shinigami are responsible for helping spirits cross to Soul Society,” Toushirou said. “Ghosts—”

“Aren’t spirits,” Fenton interrupted, earning a glare for his impetuousness. “Seriously, we aren’t. This is a ghost”—he pointed to himself—“that’s a spirit.” He pointed to Ichigo. “They can see me”—he pointed to Manson and Foley—“and they can’t see you. Plus you’ve all got these big swords, and most ghosts don’t have them. I’ve only seen two with swords, and they’re not like you either.”

“I think the point Kuchiki-taichou is trying to make is that if ghosts are real, we would’ve met them before,” Renji said bluntly. “We’re not just in Japan. We’ve got shinigami stationed in America, and they would’ve met ghosts while performing konsou on spirits.”

“I’ve never seen a shinigami before coming to Japan,” Fenton said, sounding completely honest.

“We didn’t even know shinigami existed,” Manson added. “I had to look you guys up.”

“Shinigami are not supposed to be known among the humans,” Toushirou said, shooting Ichigo a look.

“I get that,” Fenton said. He paused for a moment. “Do you believe in ghosts?” he finally asked.

“I have to admit,” Matsumoto said, “the evidence is pretty compelling.” She gestured to Fenton. “Can’t mistake that.”

“There have been reports of several other ghosts like you,” Toushirou said. “Including one Kurosaki fought shortly before we met you.”

“The Box Ghost?” Fenton sounded confused.

“He called himself Skulker,” Ichigo cut in. “And said something about being the ‘Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter.’”

“ _Oh_.” Fenton blinked, a grin tugging at his lips. “Skulker. Don’t worry about him. He’ll only be after you if you’re a really rare specimen or something he doesn’t have yet.”

Blanching, Ichigo couldn’t miss the shit-eating grin Renji shot his way. “Shit,” he muttered. He turned to Toushirou. “And you just told him I’m one of a kind!” he accused angrily.

“If it’s any consolation, he’s not that hard to beat,” Fenton offered, not sounding at all sympathetic to Ichigo’s plight.

“That’s not the point.” Groaning, Ichigo rubbed his face in exasperation. “He’s gonna pop up in school one day. I just _know_ it.”

“Happens to them all the time,” Fenton said, gesturing back at a very confused looking Manson and Foley.

“What?” they demanded simultaneously.

“Ghosts at school,” Fenton explained quickly.

As one, their faces turned disgusted. Then: “ _Ugh_.”

“All the time,” Foley moaned. “It’s so annoying.”

“We’ve gotten a lot of detentions,” Manson said, not sounding at all sorry for that. “Hazard of the job.”

“Enough,” Toushirou said impatiently. “As enlightening as this has been, you’ll need to come in with us, Fantomu.”

Snapping his head around to stare open-mouthed at Toushirou, Ichigo didn’t miss the way Fenton blanched and gasped out a strangled, “What?”

This…wasn’t good.

* * *

In response to the small shinigami’s words, Danny couldn’t help but blanch. Then, in a strangled voice, he gasped out, “What?”

“You heard me,” the kid said impatiently. “You’re coming with us to Soul Society.”

“ _Why_? I already told you I’m not dead! I can’t come with you to the _afterlife_!”

“You’re not dead, but you do have reiryoku,” the kid said. “And that’s all that’s needed for travel between the living world and Soul Society.”

“Besides, it’s not only the dead that come to Soul Society,” Renji added, shooting Ichigo a significant look.

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Danny flung his arms around agitatedly. “I can’t come with you! I belong here, not in the afterlife!”

“No, you don’t,” the black-haired captain said. “You’re not a human, and this is the _human_ world.”

“He called it the living world,” Danny said helplessly, pointing to the kid. “I’m living?” It came out as a question despite his best efforts.

“What is it?” Sam asked worriedly. “What do they want?”

Out of the corner of his mouth, Danny whispered, “They want me to come with them.”

Sam’s eyes widened. “They can’t!”

“We can,” the black-haired captain said evenly even though Sam couldn’t hear him.

“Rest assured,” the kid said, rummaging around in his robes, “your friends will be safe.” He pulled out a strange device with a birdie head on the top of it. “Their memories will be erased, and they will have no knowledge of what transpired.”

“That won’t keep them safe! You can’t _do_ that!”

“They can,” Ichigo said, mouth twisted unhappily.

“They can’t know about us,” Matsumoto said, “and they shouldn’t know about you. It’s safer this way, Fantomu. Trust us.”

“It’s not necessary,” Ichigo objected much to Danny’s relief. “You could bring Fantomu in and leave his friends alone. They obviously know how to keep a secret.”

“You know the rules, Kurosaki,” the kid said, dashing Danny’s hopes. “Mortals aren’t permitted to know about us.”

Pinching his lips together, Ichigo looked to the side. His brown eyes met Danny’s briefly, remorse written in their depths.

Ichigo couldn’t help him, but Danny definitely appreciated the effort.

“I’m not coming in,” Danny said firmly, taking a step closer to his friends. “Sorry, but no.”

“You’ll be safe,” the kid promised.

Danny couldn’t help it: he laughed. “Safe? I haven’t been safe in years, Captain. And going to your Soul Society isn’t going to make me any safer.”

“You don’t have a choice,” the black-haired captain warned.

“Oh yeah?” Danny gave him a broad grin. “Here’s one thing you might know about me. Someone tells me I don’t have a choice? I _make_ one.” He took another step back and took hold of his friends’ elbows, prepared to take off at a moment’s notice. “So, totally great meeting you – note the heavy sarcasm there – but I’m gonna take off now. Adios!”

And although Matsumoto shouted a “Wait!” after him and the kid somehow let loose an explosive smoke cloud, Danny had taken off, Sam and Tucker at his sides. He turned invisible, making sure that no one was on his tail before he focused on hightailing it out of there as fast as possible without hurting his friends.

“Danny!” Sam clutched hold of his arm. “What’s going on?”

Gritting his teeth, Danny forced down his anger and said, “They wanted to erase your memories and take me to Soul Society, the afterlife.”

“Erase _everything_?” Tucker yelped in alarm.

“Yes.” Danny’s grip tightened protectively. “It’s why I took off so quickly.”

“But that doesn’t solve anything,” Sam said. “Ichigo’s still at school.”

“Ichigo’s not the problem. He tried to help, but it’s not like he could do it without getting in trouble.”

“And that makes it better?” Sam demanded.

“It means we have to trust him. He’s the only shinigami that _doesn’t_ want to send me to the afterlife. He knows what’s going on. We don’t have a choice, Sam.” He had left the destruction Nai Samurai had wrought behind; the buildings were actually intact here.

“We’ll take your word for it,” Tucker said quickly. “What about that ghost? What was up with him?”

Danny’s lips pinched. “Nai Samurai. Apparently he was friends with the Fright Knight.”

“The Fright Knight has _friends_?” Sam sounded incredulous.

Danny couldn’t help the small grin that tugged at his lips. “I guess even a Halloween ghost has chums.”

“ _So_ wrong,” Tucker muttered, shaking his head. He turned serious a moment later, his focus zeroing in on the green mess on Danny’s front. “What happened here?”

“He got a lucky shot.” Danny grimaced in remembered pain. “It’s not a problem. Looks worse than it is.”

“We don’t have a washing machine,” Sam said dryly.

“I know.” Danny made a face. “I’ll probably have to sneak into a laundromat tonight.”

“How long d’you think we’ll be grounded when our folks find out about this?” Tucker wondered.

“ _If_ they find out,” Sam said. “They’re not going to.”

The reminder about their home dimension had Danny’s throat closing up as he remembered what Nai Samurai had said about was going on there. He’d said everything was razed to ashes.

But ghosts didn’t necessarily tell the truth. He had to be lying.

Right?

* * *

Toushirou’s thumb pressed the trigger of the kikanshinki and a huge smoke cloud erupted along with a small _boom._

Knowing that Fenton could be fast when he wanted to be, Ichigo doubted that he’d been caught in the smoke. Still, he held his breath as he waited anxiously for the smoke to clear. When it did, and no one was there, he released it in relief.

Then, so no one would suspect him, he said, “Damn, he’s fast. Must’ve turned invisible or something and flown off with his friends.”

“Would you stop admiring him and help us find him?” Toushirou snapped.

“He’s gone, Toushirou,” Ichigo said bluntly. “If he wants to, he can really fly. I’ve seen him.”

“It’s Hitsugaya-taichou!”                   

Matsumoto spoke before Ichigo could infuriate Toushirou any further. “How are we supposed to report this to Soul Society?”

“With the truth,” Byakuya said. He met Ichigo’s eyes. “What ghost were you fighting, Kurosaki?”

Grimacing at the reminder of the hunter, Ichigo responded, “Skulker; he’s some kind of hunter.”

“Obviously, with how he was talking about pelts,” Renji muttered.

Toushirou ignored him, addressing Ichigo again. “You’re going to be keeping an eye out for the three of them. If you see him, detain Fantomu and get in contact with us.”

Ichigo raised an eyebrow. “How? ’Cause I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s a _ghost_. My usual methods of fighting him won’t work.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Toushirou said dismissively, ignoring the glare Ichigo shot his way.

Renji clapped a hand on Ichigo’s shoulder. “Be seeing you, Ichigo. Good luck.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Ichigo scowled heavily as the shinigami opened the Senkaimon and stepped into the white light.

The moment the doors closed, Ichigo rolled his eyes and took off into the air, solidifying the reishi beneath his feet.

“Detain Fantomu, my _ass_.”

* * *

Nai Samurai was choking the life out of him, sword thrust through Danny’s ribs, and he couldn’t do _anything_.

Nai Samurai’s red eyes glowed with an unholy fire as he hissed, “ _Die_ , Phantom.”

With a jerk, Danny jolted awake, only to hear Sam saying, “Just because you slept through your alarm doesn’t mean you’re gonna miss school, Danny.”

Heart racing, Danny managed to gasp out a startled, “What?”

Standing over him, Sam gave him a concerned look. “School,” she repeated slowly. “You slept through your alarm, but we’ve still got it.”

“Oh.” Danny subtly checked himself over for obvious signs he’d been having a nightmare, relieved to find that his clothes were dry. “Yeah, got it.”

“Are you all right?” Sam asked, sounding worried. “You didn’t look too comfortable there.”

Danny forced a small smile. “The couch’s covered in plastic; I don’t sleep well on plastic.”

“I had nightmares about being stuck in the sewer system until the end of time,” Tucker said casually. “And about the entire thing caving in and burying us alive.”

Sam glanced back at Tucker before meeting Danny’s eyes and saying bluntly, “I dreamt you died. You died and there was no chance of you ever coming back.”

Blinking, Danny sat up, setting his feet on the wooden floor. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh,’” Sam echoed. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Danny.”

“It’s just…” Danny rubbed his face, leaning an elbow on his knees. “After the last one and a half years, you’d think I’d’ve gotten _used_ to this. But, no, I got nightmares about him beating me.” About Nai Samurai _killing_ him.

“If you didn’t get nightmares about this stuff, something else would be wrong,” Sam said. “Jazz is always on you about talking about your feelings. Dreams are just another way of expressing stuff that happens to you.”

Danny grimaced. “Could do without it.”

“There weren’t any casualties yesterday,” Tucker said. “Everyone got out in time. Gotta say one for thing for the Japanese; they’re scarily efficient even when panicked.”

“There _could_ have been.” Danny swallowed at remembering the destruction yesterday. “It was too close.”

“It was,” Sam agreed, “but you know what? Even if people _had_ died, it wouldn’t have been your fault. It would’ve been that ghost’s.”

“It’s _my_ responsibility.”

“No, it isn’t,” Sam said firmly. When Danny opened his mouth to protest, she added, “It _isn’t_ , Danny. You’re not responsible for what other ghosts do.”

“Just like you’re not responsible for what _we_ do,” Tucker said, coming to stand next to Sam. “We get that you worry, but you can’t stress too much over it. It’s not gonna help.”

Gaze flickering between his two friends, Danny swallowed and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

Rolling her eyes, Sam sounded exasperated as she said, “You’re not going to listen to us, are you.”

Shrugging sheepishly, Danny managed a small smile. “I’ll try.”

Nudging Sam in the shoulder, Tucker had a wry grin on his face as he remarked, “Guess that’s the best we’ll get from him, Sam. Now c’mon. We’ll be late for school.”

As his friends shoved his backpack into his hands, Danny couldn’t help but feel guilty. There hadn’t been any deaths yesterday, but that was more due to luck than anything else. Next time something like this happened, chances were that things would be a lot worse.

Sam and Tucker tried, but they had no idea what it was like. He had the power and the abilities to _stop_ ghosts from destroying things. So how was it _not_ his fault if a ghost killed people because he wasn’t good enough? 

* * *

  Accompanied by his two friends Asano Keigo and Kojima Mizuiro, Ichigo walked through a neighborhood on his usual path to school. He had only half an ear – or maybe less if he was being honest – on the conversation Keigo was enthusiastically keeping up by himself on the latest football match. The rest of his mind was on what had happened yesterday. By the time the shinigami had left for Soul Society, it had been going on evening and Ichigo had had to rush back to his body, hoping no one had stumbled across it and called the hospital in a panic.

Much to his good fortune, Ishida had come across his body and left a snarky note plastered to the nearest lamppost that informed Ichigo his body was at Chad’s house and could he please be more careful in the future? Bodies didn’t grow on trees after all.

Ichigo blinked back into awareness when Keigo began waving his hand in front of his face, calling his name as he did so.

Smacking Keigo’s hand away in irritation, Ichigo said, “What? What is it?”

“I was talking about the football game. You didn’t watch it?” Keigo looked woebegone.

It was with no shame that Ichigo lied, “My dad had one of his soaps on.”

Mizuiro looked up. “Your dad watches soaps?”

“Yeah.”

“You haven’t been spending any time with us,” Keigo whined, slumping dramatically next to Ichigo. “What’s going on, Ichigo?”

“Nothing. I’ve just been busy.” So busy that he was worrying about what to do with Fenton and Soul Society. So busy that he was worrying about Skulker and when the hunter would next pop up. He didn’t have time for his friends.

“If you skip any more classes, they’re going to suspend you,” Mizuiro pointed out.

Ichigo shot him an ineffective glare. “What makes you think I’m planning on skipping? I had legitimate excuses the last so many times!”

“You have bowel issues?” Keigo asked. “You keep going to the bathroom!”

“And family emergencies,” Ichigo said, declining to comment on his bowel issues. He absentmindedly kicked aside a milk carton.

Five seconds later, he found his head abruptly trapped in what looked like a blue cage. “Argh!” He dropped his school bag to try and pry the cage off. It didn’t budge. “What is this?”

Skulker appeared before him, grinning gleefully. “A cage that neutralizes ghost powers, orange child.” His eyes skimmed over Keigo and Mizuiro. After a moment, he raised both eyebrows and said, “Boo.”

It was too much for Keigo. He grabbed hold of Mizuiro’s arm and pelted away. “SORRRYYY, ICHIGOOOO!”

“Well, that was amusing,” Skulker said, returning his attention to Ichigo. “Any last words, orange child?”

Ichigo opened his mouth, only to be cut off by his badge going off. “HOLLOW! HOLLOW!”

Slapping at it, Ichigo ineffectively attempted to quiet it. “Shut up!” It did so after a few more renditions of “HOLLOW!” Rolling his eyes, Ichigo muttered disgustedly, “Stupid thing.”

“I have a device that cloaks my signature,” Skulker said silkily.

“To be expected from ‘the Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter,’” Ichigo said mockingly, slowly taking the badge off his pants. Skulker had said the cage neutralized ghost powers, but Ichigo wasn’t a ghost. Which meant it should be useless against him. “Can we do this later? I’ve got school.”

“I am the Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter,” Skulker said loftily, aiming one of his guns at Ichigo. “Prepare to rest as a pelt at the foot of my bed.”

Ichigo held his badge up, prepared to use it. “I thought you said it’d be my choice?”

“I changed my mind.”

“Naturally,” Ichigo muttered.

“So, prey…” Skulker grinned evilly. “Prepare to—” A sudden beeping noise drew his attention to his arm and stopped Ichigo from slamming the badge to his chest. “What is it now? …‘Go to library and check out book on purple-back gorillas’? I could’ve sworn I fixed that!” he cried indignantly.

In utter bemusement, Ichigo watched two jet wings pop out from Skulker’s back and fire up to take him away. As Skulker jetted off, the cage vanished from Ichigo’s head, and he rubbed his neck in irritation.

Eventually, he furrowed his brow and murmured disbelievingly, “There’s a purple-back gorilla?”

* * *

Ichigo managed to make his English class by the skin of his teeth, skidding into his seat the moment the bell rang.

“Nice to see you could join us today, Kurosaki,” the teacher said dryly. “What held you up?”

A dozen excuses flashed through Ichigo’s mind, but the one that made its way out of his mouth had him cringing in embarrassment. “I had an incident with a milk carton.”

Next to him, he heard Fenton stifle a snicker.

“A milk carton,” the teacher repeated disbelievingly, eyebrows furrowed.

Well, might as well… “A milk carton,” Ichigo insisted firmly.

“Riiight.” The teacher evidently gave Ichigo up as a lost cause in favor of holding up a ruler threateningly. “Please hand in the assignments you should have finished yesterday.”

Ichigo had finished his a little earlier than that, and thankfully, too, since he’d had zero time yesterday. He glanced over at Fenton, only to find that the other was looking over at him as well.

Ichigo raised an inquiring eyebrow, receiving a slight nod in return. Satisfied, he pulled out his homework and stacked it on the desk.

It was a good thing if Fenton still trusted him enough to talk with him in private later.

* * *

Ichigo and his friends were barely five minutes into lunch when Fenton and his friends approached them. Fenton was clearly the instigator of this, as both his friends had mistrustful expressions written all over their faces. They were also protectively hovering at his sides, shooting Ichigo daggers over Fenton’s shoulders.

Fenton cleared his throat, tentatively asking, “You guys mind if we join you?”

Before anyone else could say a thing, Ichigo said, “Have at it.” Luckily Keigo and Mizuiro weren’t here. The glares Ichigo had shot their way the last time he’d seen them had told them both they should steer clear of Ichigo for the foreseeable future.

“Great.” Fenton sat across from Ichigo; his friends immediately walled him in, their body language screaming protectiveness.

Ishida, Inoue, and Chad noticed this, and they all shot Ichigo looks out of the corner of their eyes. The tension between them and Manson and Foley amped up several notches.

Fenton seemed absolutely oblivious to this.

“Hi,” Fenton said, grinning. “I’m Danny Fenton.”

“Fenton Danny,” Manson muttered under her breath, unpeeling her rather brown banana mutinously. “It’s Japan.”

Fenton didn’t bat an eyelash. “What she said. She’s Manson Sam, and he’s Foley Tucker.”

“Kurosaki Ichigo,” Ichigo said, reintroducing himself again just to be polite. “Ishida Uryuu, Inoue Orihime, and Sado Yasutora.”

Fenton frowned slightly, mouth moving as he sounded the names out. Ichigo belatedly remembered him saying that Japanese wasn’t his first language and that he was horrible with names.

“I can write ’em down if you’d like,” Ichigo offered, earning a surprised look from Ishida.

“No, I think I’ve got it,” Fenton said. “Uryuu”—he pointed to Ishida—“Orihime”—he pointed to Inoue—“…and Yasu…tora?”

“In Japan,” Ishida said, “it’s customary to use first names only if you’re familiar with the other person.”

The three Americans blinked, and before Fenton could respond, Ichigo rushed to say, “But Ichigo’s fine if you’re comfortable with that.”

Fenton looked rather lost. “Okay…”

“You can call me Orihime,” Inoue said, smiling kindly. “I don’t mind. Besides, we’re all friends here, aren’t we?”

Ishida grunted slightly at this proclamation, but said nothing.

“We’re friends,” Ichigo agreed firmly. “So what’d you want to join us for, Fenton?”

“Call me Danny,” Fenton insisted, blue eyes mutinous. “We’re not on bad enough terms to call each other by our last names.”

“You mean he hasn’t bullied you,” Foley said, seemingly unthinkingly. His mouth promptly snapped shut a second later and he busied himself with his sandwich.

Fenton – Danny looked resigned. “That, too,” he agreed slowly, grinning sheepishly.

“Why would you be bullied?” Ichigo asked curiously. “You’ve got…” He gestured vaguely in Danny’s general direction.

“It’s a secret,” Danny said not surprisingly. “Not many people know about it.”

“It _used_ to be just four, not counting Danny,” Manson said, sounding rather reasonable despite the dark cast to her face. “But now we’ve got you guys, too.” She didn’t sound at all happy about this.

“Sam,” Danny warned lowly. “We talked about this.”

“ _You_ trust him. I’m gonna keep watching our backs.”

“You can’t see them,” Foley pointed out. “Neither can I. That doesn’t help us.”

Manson glared, evidently not pleased with this fallacy in her plan.

Danny sighed, a weary expression quickly flashing across his face before it disappeared. “Yesterday was kinda bad,” he said quietly.

“There was a lot of destruction,” Ishida agreed, and now Danny looked guilty.

Ichigo rolled his eyes, giving Ishida a shove. “Ishida’s just being an idiot. So what’d you want?” he repeated his earlier question.

Danny cleared his throat, leaning in closer to whisper, “About the shinigami… Are they gonna come back?”

“Probably,” Ichigo answered honestly. “But not for now. They told me to detain you if I see you again, but…” He arched an eyebrow and made a point at looking at Danny. “I don’t see Fantomu right now.”

Manson and Foley looked at him with something akin to respect.

“But speaking of ghosts,” Ichigo continued, frowning, “Skulker got to me this morning. It’s why I was late.”

“So there wasn’t really a milk carton?” Danny asked, smirking.

“No, there was.” Ichigo had a pained expression his face. “And then before he could do anything, he up and left because of a purple-backed gorilla.”

The reaction this garnered surprised him: all three burst into laughter.

“He _still_ hasn’t gotten rid of that bug?” Foley choked out, snickering into his sandwich. “It’s been over a year!”

“Saved our hides a lot,” Danny added, covering his grinning mouth with a hand.

“So there _is_ such a thing as a purple-backed gorilla?” Ichigo asked, confused.

“Probably not here,” Manson said, sobering slightly. A grin still tugged at her lips, and her shoulders shook slightly. “But there is where we come from. They’re endangered, with only two living in the entire world.”

“We would’ve heard of such a species,” Ishida said skeptically.

Manson’s eyes widened noticeably. “Oh.”

Danny shot her a look before meeting Ichigo’s eyes and saying steadily, “They exist where we come from.”

There was something significant with how Danny was saying the words, as if they _meant_ something…

_“It’s sort of an alternate dimension. If I could explain it properly…it’s like…houses? So we’ve got this dimension, and then we’ve got where the ghosts live. There’re portals allowing them access to this dimension; I just stuff them back in.”_

Ichigo’s eyes widened in sudden realization. “An alternate dimension?”

“What?” Ishida sounded perplexed.

“Kurosaki-kun?” Inoue sounded just as confused.

“You’re from an alternate dimension?” Ichigo asked again.

Before Danny could say anything, Manson whirled on him with a betrayed look. “You _told_ him?” she hissed.

Putting up his hands defensively, Danny denied, “I didn’t!”

“He didn’t,” Ichigo said hastily. “I just put two and two together. You said ghosts come from a different dimension, and _you’re_ kind of one, so…” He lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “Am I right?”

“We’ll neither confirm nor deny,” Foley said primly, nudging Danny in the side.

Which meant he was right, and that opened up a whole new can of worms. If Danny was from a different dimension, what did that mean for his friends? Judging from what Manson had said about the purple-backed gorilla only existing where they came from, they weren’t from here either.

“How interesting,” Ishida said dryly, brow furrowed thoughtfully. “That would explain the sudden appearance of ghosts. Are the barriers between your dimension and ours dissipating?”

“No,” Danny said as Foley responded, “We don’t know.”

“Which is it?” Ishida asked sharply.

“We have an educated guess,” Foley said after a moment’s pause. “We were attacked by a ghost back in our home town, and it hit us with some kind of attack, and we landed here. Same thing for the Box Ghost when Danny asked him. We don’t know about Skulker.”

“What about that ghost yesterday?” Ichigo asked.

Danny shrugged. “I dunno. But…” His eyes darkened. “He said something about our worlds being razed to ashes. Then again, I’ve learned to take anything a ghost says with a heavy dose of salt.”

Ishida pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I don’t know… Obviously _something’s_ going on. You can’t just traverse dimensions like that.”

“I was more talking about the whole ‘razed to ashes’ bit,” Danny said. “There _is_ something going on.”

“So you’re trapped here?” Inoue asked sympathetically.

“Eh.” Danny shrugged.

“It’s not so bad,” Manson said off-handedly. “I’ve always wanted to go to Japan.”

“Definitely a bonus if we don’t even have to learn the language,” Foley added.

“What?” For a moment Ichigo thought there had been an echo, but then he realized that they’d all spoken at the same time.

“You’re speaking Japanese,” Ishida pointed out. “It’s with a slight accent, but still Japanese.”

“To us it sounds like English,” Danny said. “Same for writing.”

“That’s odd,” Ishida said. “ _Everything_ is in English?”

“Well, no,” Danny admitted. “We had to look up the translation for ‘shinigami,’ and Ichigo uses terms I don’t understand at all.”

“So it’s the fine terms that aren’t so easily translatable?”

 “I guess…” Danny sounded rather befuddled.

“We’re not complaining,” Foley said, finishing the rest of his sandwich in one large bite. “Because otherwise this whole thing would’ve been one large game of charades.”

“I dunno,” Manson said, grinning. “I’ve always loved a good game of charades.”

“No.” Danny’s response was emphatic, and Ichigo sensed that there was a story behind it.

Further conversation was cut off by Ichigo’s hollow badge going off and a plume of blue smoke rushing out of Danny’s mouth. The badge didn’t startle anyone but Danny, but the blue smoke attracted almost everyone’s attention.

“What,” Ishida said, “was _that_?”

Danny coughed, covering his mouth with a hand. Voice muffled, he replied, “My ghost sense. But that’s new.”

“There’s a hollow,” Ichigo said, standing with his badge in hand. “I’m gonna run in—”

“For the love of God, Kurosaki, don’t leave your body lying in the hallway,” Ishida said sharply.

Ichigo shot him an irritated look. “I wasn’t going to.” He pointed at Danny. “You are going to stay here.”

He didn’t wait to hear Danny’s response, already running inside.

Stashing his body in an empty bathroom stall and making sure it was locked, Ichigo jumped outside a window. He shunpoed to the spot his badge led him to and then stopped in confusion. There were no hollows in the vicinity.

Squinting down at the badge, Ichigo scratched his head. “Is this thing defective?”

Beyond irritated, Ichigo turned to head back to school.

And then space around him literally turned in on itself, warping and distorting. Ichigo could _feel_ it tearing, and accompanying the sensation was a reiatsu that he could never forget.

Shit… Hand going around the hilt of Zangetsu, Ichigo slowly turned around to face what had just torn open a hole between the living world and the world of the hollows.

* * *

Staring at Ichigo’s back as he ran inside the school, Danny turned to look at his friends, only to be blindsided by two voices simultaneously saying “ _No_.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything!” he said defensively.

“You’re not going after whatever set your ghost sense off,” Sam ordered, eyes narrowed.

“Come on, Sam, you’ve gotta admit that was weird.” He had been absolutely freezing for a moment, his lungs practically ice in his chest. “My ghost sense has never done that before.”

“I don’t care. The shinigami are after your pretty butt, so you’re not going ghost.”

Danny blinked. “You think I’m pretty?”

The question clearly caught Sam off guard, as her mouth dropped open in surprise. To Danny’s other side, Tucker let out a guffaw. Ichigo’s friends watched in utter bemusement.

“What – yes – _no_!” Sam spluttered.

“You don’t think I’m pretty?”

“That’s not the point!” Sam jabbed a finger in Danny’s chest. “You’re not going ghost, and the shinigami won’t find you!”

“They have a very good tendency of finding things they shouldn’t,” Uryuu ventured to say.

Sam flapped a hand in his direction. “Quiet!”

Uryuu’s mouth dropped open in indignation, but Yasutora shook his head, quieting him.

“I’m not going ghost, Sam,” Danny said, trying to calm her down. “At least not unless Ichigo needs me. Because that was _not_ normal.”

“Kurosaki-kun is strong,” Orihime said. “He’ll be fine.”

“You know,” Uryuu started slowly, “I was wondering about that ‘going ghost’ thing you said. What exactly does that mean? Kurosaki said you’re not entirely human, but how exactly?”

Danny blinked, taken aback. This was not something he was willing to talk about, even with a friend of Ichigo’s. It wasn’t even something he’d discussed with his friends. He had ghost powers, and that was it. (But he wasn’t quite _human_ , was he…)

“Er…” He eventually offered a noncommittal shrug.

Uryuu frowned, evidently not pleased with this answer.

Luckily for Danny, any further inquiries as to his current genetic status were put on hold when all of Ichigo’s friends stiffened. And Danny…he didn’t stiffen, but the hairs on his arms definitely prickled as he felt space just become… _wrong_. He didn’t have the words to describe it, but there was something definitely wrong with space.

“What is that?” he asked, half-turning to look over the side of the school roof. If he squinted, he could see what looked like a black speck that was most likely Ichigo in the sky.

“That’s impossible,” Yasutora said, speaking for the first time since Danny and his friends had sat down.

“It’s happened before,” Uryuu said. “But that was with hollow bait. Why now?”

“What is it?” Sam demanded. “What’s wrong?”

Danny didn’t have to ask; he could clearly see the hole in space ripping itself into existence several hundred feet in the air.

And the menacing aura that filled the air was more terrifying than anything Danny had ever felt before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reasons why the protections around the Seireitei didn't affect the Fright Knight? He's a ghost and doesn't have anything that sets them off. He also doesn't know they exist, so there's no explanation.
> 
> And now we're slowly getting to the good stuff. (If it wasn't already good before.)


	8. The Fright Knight's Appearance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [FF.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4141826/1/Shinigami-Phantom) actually has more chapters than AO3 for now. I haven't yet uploaded everything here, largely because I do _more_ editing for typos and such before posting on this site.

**Shortly after returning to Soul Society…**

The Gotei 13 once again assembled in the meeting room, waiting on the reports of the four that had gone to Karakura Town. Yamamoto stood at the head of the lined up taichou and fukutaichou, no emotion on his face.

After a few more seconds of silence, Yamamoto’s eyes cracked open slightly and he spoke. “What did you observe in the human realm?”

A quick glance at the others later, Toushirou answered, “We engaged the being known as Fantomu and two other ghosts. Kurosaki Ichigo was engaging the one known as Skulker; Fantomu was engaged with a ghost identified as Nai Samurai.”

Mayuri’s eyes narrowed. “You call them ‘ghosts.’ Is there a reason for this?”

Toushirou’s eyes flicked over to him before his gaze returned to Yamamoto. “Fantomu was quite insistent on the matter.” The words were even.

“They are visible to human eyes,” Byakuya said, “and possess abilities spirits don’t.”

“It would be arrogant of us to assume we know every single ability spirits can manifest,” Soi Fon, taichou of the twelfth division, remarked.

“Fantomu was insistent that he wasn’t a spirit, but alive,” Toushirou repeated. “And given what we saw of his abilities and his story, we’re inclined to find some truth in his claims.”

“What was his story?” Yamamoto asked.

“He comes from America, apparently from a place where ghosts are common. He serves as a defender, returning ghosts to where they come from – an alternate dimension. There are apparently portals he uses to this effect.”

“He has two human friends,” Byakuya supplied. “Them learning of our involvement was unavoidable considering that Fantomu can see us and is visible to them.”

“Why didn’t you erase their memories?” Soi Fon demanded.

“We tried,” Byakuya answered calmly, meeting Soi Fon’s eyes unflinchingly. “Fantomu escaped with them before we could.”

Soi Fon’s eyes narrowed. “You weren’t able to follow him?”

“According to Kurosaki, he turned invisible and flew off.”

“He possesses no reiatsu that would enable us to track him down,” Toushirou said. “We left orders with Kurosaki to detain Fantomu the next time he sees him.”

None of them mentioned the likelihood of Kurosaki following through on those orders. Byakuya was all too aware of what Kurosaki thought of Soul Society’s laws, and Renji had had a firsthand taste of what Ichigo would do to save the ones he cared for. And while Toushirou and Rangiku weren’t as familiar with Kurosaki Ichigo as Byakuya and Renji were, they knew enough of him to know that he wasn’t very likely to listen.

Still, they had covered their bases, and no one else in Soul Society save for Kuchiki Rukia knew how unlikely it was that Kurosaki Ichigo would listen to Soul Society.

“You said this Fantomu claims these ghosts are from America?” Yamamoto asked. “Why is it that we have not run across them before?”

“He didn’t give us a clear answer when we asked,” Toushirou said, irritated.

“He said something along the lines of ghosts not liking shinigami,” Rangiku said. “But it seemed to be more of a joke than an actual answer.”

“Could it be Aizen?” Ukitake Juushirou, taichou of the thirteenth division, asked, glancing over at Yamamoto.

“According to reliable sources, the Hougyoku will not be fully awake for a few months yet,” Yamamoto said. “As such, Aizen cannot use it to create these new beings.”

“They seem to have been around a while anyway,” Renji said. “Fantomu was pretty familiar with his friends and the other ghosts Ichigo’s come up against.”

“They are dangerous beings,” Soi Fon said sharply. “Reports on the destruction of Karakura Town have already begun to filter in. It was pure luck that there were no casualties.”

“This is true,” Yamamoto said decisively. “We must prepare. These ‘ghosts’ are volatile, and we do not know what they want. They are no longer isolated solely to America.” He looked over at Toushirou and Byakuya. “The two of you will be the first response team in the case of further events in Karakura Town. Detain Fantomu and other ghosts when you can.”

“Yes, soutaichou,” the two taichou responded.

“Make sure they’re in one piece,” Mayuri said, eyes gleaming fanatically. “I would love to study them.”

“I’d love to see how they measure up in a good fight,” Zaraki Kenpachi said, grinning devilishly. As the taichou of the eleventh division, he was always up for a good fight, although Ichigo had been very evasive the last time he’d seen him.

“They can move through stuff,” Renji remarked offhandedly.

Kenpachi scowled. “That’s unfair.”

Perhaps wisely, no one commented on this.

* * *

**Present time…**

Shortly after Nemu had run off with the unknown green zanpakutou, Mayuri had called her back and told her to put the weapon in the examination room for later. He wanted to be the first to run any tests.

After making certain that all his paperwork was done and no one would be disturbing him in the near future, Mayuri looked up at the nervous looking shinigami. “Is the zanpakutou still in the examination room?”

“Yes, taichou,” the shinigami responded immediately. He fell silent immediately afterward.

Pausing in his work, Mayuri looked up with narrowed eyes. “Is there something else?”

Following a moment’s hesitation, the shinigami inclined his head. “Taichou…is it truly a zanpakutou? I’ve never felt that kind of energy before.”

“Why do you think I’m examining it? Such a find cannot go unexamined!”

“Yes, taichou!” Nodding briskly, the shinigami returned to standing at attention.

Satisfied that all his work was finished, Mayuri stood and left, heading to the examination room where the glowing zanpakutou would be found. This would do very well in alleviating his boredom until Hitsugaya and Kuchiki could come back with a so-called ghost.

* * *

Hovering over a courtyard, the Fright Knight had his arms folded across his chest as he frowned down at the sight below him.

“These beings are strange.” He observed a black-clothed being fight another with a wooden stick. “Such ineffective fighting strategies…” Red light from the corner of the courtyard caught his attention, and he watched as a row of black-clothed beings demolish targets with flashy red ecto-beams that didn’t feel like ecto-beams. “And what matter of attack is that?”

His eyes narrowed in consideration as he continued to watch for several more minutes. “This merits more investigation,” he decided eventually. “But first, I must claim my sword.”

Turning, he continued on his path, continuing to fly until he could no longer do so. Landing, the Fright Knight entered a building and proceeded to walk through the hallways, phasing through walls when he needed to. He passed rooms that contained strange objects of power and otherworldly creatures that didn’t seem to be human, but he didn’t pay them any attention.

Finally, he emerged in a room with weapons he recognized and he could definitely use and stopped. There was a door at the far end, and he turned visible upon seeing that no one was there. Then, inspecting the weapons on offer, he reached for a spear that he could wield without any hardship.

He was just about to turn to the door when a voice interrupted him: “Hey, you!”

The Fright Knight turned to see one of those black-clothed beings glaring at him and holding an odd-shaped sword.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the young being demanded.

“Where is my sword?” the Fright Knight asked.

The being didn’t answer the question, eyes flicking over the Fright Knight’s form, confusion flickering across his face. “On second thought,  _what_  are you?”

“The Fright Knight,” the Fright Knight said in his spookiest voice, gesturing threateningly with his spear. “I ask you again: where is my sword?”

“None of your business, ryoka!” the being snapped. “I’m the one asking questions here! How’d you get past the guards? You’re no shinigami!”

“Shinigami,” the Fright Knight repeated, rolling the strange word around in his mouth. Perhaps that was what these beings were called? “What is a shinigami?”

“What?” The shinigami stared at him. “What sort of question is that?” He suddenly scowled, both hands clenching around the hilt of his sword. “Stop messing around! What—”

“Answer my question, you impertinent shinigami, or perish!” the Fright Knight roared, taking a step closer to the blanching shinigami, who didn’t move – much to his credit.

“Fine then,” the shinigami said. “Shinigami are Death Gods. We help spirits cross over from the living world to where they’re supposed to go. My turn now.” He jabbed his sword in the Fright Knight’s direction. “What are you?”

“I am the Fright Knight, master of Halloween,” the Fright Knight said, letting none of his impatience into his tone.

The shinigami unexpectedly burst out into raucous laughter. He managed to eventually choke out, “Master of Halloween? Ha, that’s a good one!”

“It is no joke,” the Fright Knight said, displeased. “Answer me: where is my sword?”

The shinigami stopped laughing, turning serious and preparing his weapon for an attack. “I don’t know of the sword you’re talking of, but I will arrest you for trespassing. You can either come quietly or not at all.”

Scoffing loudly to show what he thought of that, the Fright Knight jumped towards the shinigami, thrusting his spear forward expertly – even if he did wield it just a bit like a sword.

“So not at all, then,” the shinigami muttered, countering with his weapon.

The fight was on.

* * *

“What are your preliminary readings on this object?” Mayuri asked his subordinate, a three-eyed green-skinned creature that was manning the computer. The glowing weapon lay on a table behind it.

“I have managed to run several different examinations on the object,” the creature responded. “The results obtained are most interesting.”

“Elaborate.”

“This object like no other weapon in Soul Society,” the creature started. “The energy it radiates is entirely different from anything we have ever recorded.”

Mayuri studied the charts of data on the computer screen. “What are the spiritual readings of the weapon?”

“It is made of an incredibly dense reiryoku,” the creature explained. “I have never seen its like before, and our records can find no match. Extrapolating from the data I have gathered, I would guess that is visible to humans if it were not completely impossible.”

“Perhaps.” Mayuri didn’t comment further on the assumption. “The weapon is here in Soul Society. We have no problems interacting with it. How different are its energies from ours?”

“At its core, we are somewhat the same,” the creature said. “Ectoplasm makes up the base of us and this weapon. The difference is that our ectoplasm is saturated with reiryoku, and the same is for our zanpakutou. This reiryoku makes us invisible to humans. This reiryoku is also what is noticeably absent from this weapon. So we have the ectoplasm, but no reiryoku. But…” He poked the flat of the blade with a pencil. “There is some power inherent in this weapon, indicating that there must be at least  _some_  reiryoku. But the amount is so negligible that our instruments cannot measure it.”

“What kind of power?” Mayuri asked, intrigued.

“It is impossible to say exactly,” the creature said. “The ectoplasm itself is saturated with a particular energy that I have not seen before.”

“Hm.” Mayuri reached out to pick the weapon up by the hilt, inspecting its peculiar design.

“I have never seen a zanpakutou such as that before,” the creature said. “Its design is entirely different from any other zanpakutou I have seen.”

Before Mayuri could respond, a loud noise from outside drew his attention. Face carefully blank, he placed the weapon down and turned to investigate. Everyone in his division knew full well what would happen if they ever disturbed his work, so it was likely someone else.

And that someone else was going to pay.

* * *

“Hey, what are you doing?” A shinigami leaned on his broom in the middle of a hallway. He had been sweeping the floor besides a door, but had given his task up in favor of staring at the really ugly tapestry on the wall.

“Sweeping the floor. What does it look like to you?” the other shinigami answered, stirring up a dust cloud as he furiously swept. “You should, too.”

“Ah.” The shinigami began to idly move his broom back and forth, looking extremely bored. “It’s so dull around here, isn’t it?”

“Mmm,” the other shinigami grunted, now moving over to the really ugly tapestry and beginning to bat his broom against it. All that did was make the tapestry horribly dusty; the shinigami didn’t seem to notice. “Don’t know about that. Seems like something’s always going on lately.”

“Oh, come on!” the other complained. “Nothing’s ever going on! It’s as boring as hell down here!”

Before his companion could answer, the tapestry he had been “dusting” exploded outward when something crashed through the wall, throwing him back. Another shinigami fell through the hole that had been made, scrambling back to avoid the wrathful swipes of a spear-wielding knight with a fiery purple cape. His zanpakutou barely came up in time to block a couple of the blows.

The first shinigami – the one who had been complaining about boredom – didn’t even notice as his broom slowly toppled over. He was too busy gaping at the sight of the two fighters going at it.

A few seconds later, the knight threw his opponent through another wall, following in another second. He hadn’t even spared a glance to his dumbfounded spectator.

Mouth still open, the remaining shinigami turned to the rubble, watching as his fellow cleaning buddy dug his way out of the rubble and the remnants of the tapestry.

“‘Boring as hell down here’?” the shinigami quoted grumpily, gray dust powdered over his face and hair. “Oh yeah. It’s  _really_  boring here.”

* * *

“My sword!” the Fright Knight thundered as he hacked off some more of the shinigami’s strange black garb.

“I already told you, baka!” the shinigami shouted, pushing aside the spear with his sword as the point of it rushed towards his face. “I don’t have it!”

“I can see that!” The Fright Knight let the sword phase through his waist. “ _Where is it_?!”

“What?!” The shinigami stared at his blade as if he couldn’t believe that it had just passed through the knight’s waist without drawing blood. “How did—” He was pushed backwards through another wall as the Fright Knight gave him a solid punch to the chest.

“It’s called intangibility,” the Fright Knight said. “And don’t take your eyes off your opponent.”

“I can see my normal zanpakutou attacks won’t do anything to you,” the shinigami said, managing to stand up. He sheathed his sword. “In that case, I will have to resort to something different.”

“Like what?” The Fright Knight watched as the shinigami spread his feet out. “You cannot attack with your bare hands.”

The shinigami seemed to be concentrating and was saying something out loud. It seemed to be an incantation of sorts and was extremely long-winded. The Fright Knight didn’t know whether to attack or just creep away while the shinigami was occupied with whatever he was doing.

Just as he’d decided to sneak off, the shinigami finished it off by saying, “Bakudou 9, Geki!”

A red light formed around the Fright Knight, and it took only a moment before he cringed from the effects of the strange spell the shinigami had used.

“A binding spell like that won’t be easy to break from!” the shinigami said triumphantly, lowering his arms.

This was a  _binding_  spell? The power that had gone into it was ridiculously weak. Completely insulted, the Fright Knight let his energy leak out, eating away at the spell. His body began to glow green with the light of his energy, the red light slowly dissipating. With a loud cry, the Fright Knight’s green energy burst outward, evaporating the light of the pitiful binding spell the shinigami had used.

“You dare to use such a feeble spell on  _me_?” the Fright Knight thundered. “I am the master of Halloween! Allow me to demonstrate a true spell of the likes you have never seen!”

The shinigami gaped at the Fright Knight. “H-how d-did…” He couldn’t seem to find the strength to finish the sentence.

Eyes narrowed in concentration, the Fright Knight put his hands close together. Then, recalling the ancient language that had been the main source of communication during Pariah Dark’s reign, he began to chant. The words were almost musical, falling and rising with the rhythm of the tide of the ocean.

Green ecto-energies flowed out of the Fright Knight’s hands, spreading out over his arms. As he continued his chanting, he slowly separated his hands, moving them out until they were parallel to his shoulders, the green ecto-energies dripping to the floor.

His opponent’s eyes were wide, face ashen as he watched the floor start to glow green. The ecto-energies that had splashed onto it spread outward to cover the entire stretch of the hallway the two stood in.

Then the Fright Knight brought his arms up in a U and said dramatically in English, “Come, my knights! Come to my service and wreak havoc to this land!” The words were unnecessary for the spell, but certainly helped him terrify the shinigami.

In a thoroughly gruesome manner, figures came into form inside the floor. The shinigami took a horrified step back, face twisted in terror as a half-formed helmet rose out of the floor. After this first breached, others began to follow. Moments later, skeleton-like hands erupted, followed by arms, a head, and the rest of the torso.

One by one, the Fright Knight’s soldiers clambered out of the floor. They were not in good condition. Some were missing limbs, and a few didn’t even have their heads. Some had rusted swords and shields while others carried maces and spears.

All of them glowed green, illuminating the entire hallway in an eerie light.

“Now you have seen a true spell,” the Fright Knight said finally, standing behind his army of knights. He threw out his hand, pointing directly at the terrified shinigami. “Go, my knights! Find my Soul Shredder and show all who would dare defy you my wrath!”

The shinigami instantly drew his sword, trying to stop the knights. Unfortunately for him, most of them weren’t interested in approaching him. They instead phased through the walls, ceiling, and back through the floor. Others slipped behind the Fright Knight to leave that way. The remaining few lurched towards the trembling shinigami.

“G-get away! Go back!” The shinigami attempted to swipe a knight’s head off, only for the blade to slide through the armor. The motion threw him off balance, and he almost toppled into a second knight. “Agh!”

“My knights are impervious to attacks if they so wish it,” the Fright Knight said in an ominous tone. “Now my sword shall be retrieved.” He folded his arms across his chest, staring the hapless shinigami down. “Would you care to elucidate on its location?”

The shinigami didn’t respond, earning the Fright Knight’s reluctant respect for his bravery.

That was until he noticed the way the shinigami wasn’t even  _listening_  to him.

The Fright Knight narrowed his eyes, displeased. Well, this was why he had summoned his soldiers. Information or not, they would find his sword.

* * *

Sam and Tucker didn’t seem to be able to feel the menacing aura that had filled the air, though they had an inkling of what was going on by looking at their friend’s face. Danny couldn’t tear his eyes off the black hole in the sky and the figure only a short way from it that was undeniably Ichigo.

“What’s wrong?” Sam demanded again.

“This just became a little more complicated,” Uryuu said in a rather calm tone.

“How?” Tucker and Sam asked simultaneously.

“You can’t see it, but right now there’s a hole in the sky that’s leading directly into the world of hollows.”

“And that’s bad,” Sam said.

“Very bad,” Yasutora confirmed.

“How bad?” Tucker asked.

“The last time something like this happened, I’d just crushed some hollow bait,” Uryuu said. “A Menos Grande – a Gillian – showed up.”

“We don’t know what that is,” Sam said after a moment.

Danny squinted, stomach lurching when he caught sight of a terrifying mask in the darkness of the hole. “I don’t think you want to know,” he muttered, getting to his feet.

“What are you doing?” Uryuu asked, coming to stand directly by Danny’s shoulder.

“Helping,” Danny said bluntly, a bluish-white ring forming at his waist and startling Uryuu.

Sam grabbed hold of his wrist. “You can’t!”

“You can’t see it, Sam, but that thing is  _huge_ ,” Danny said, not quite yanking his wrist out of Sam’s hold.

“Kurosaki is fully capable of handling a single Gillian,” Uryuu said calmly.

“Um…Ishida-kun…” Orihime sounded rather stunned. “There are a lot more than one.”

There were. There were a lot more masks popping up in that hole to the hollows’ world, and they were all peering down into the human world as if they would very much like to eat it.

That was until one looked up, and – or so it seemed to a chilled Danny – right at Danny.

“I’m going,” Danny said, yanking his arm out of Sam’s grip. “I can’t let him deal with that alone!” He let the bluish-white rings wash over him, startling Uryuu into stepping back.

“Danny—” Sam started, only to cut off when Tucker laid a hand on her elbow. She looked back at him almost desperately, but all Tucker did was shake his head lightly.

“We can’t back you up,” Tucker told Danny. “So be careful.”

Danny thinned his lips, nodded once, and took off in a blur.

Ichigo had whipped out a crescent-shaped arc of blue energy that hit one Gillian in the mask and disintegrated it. But there were a lot more of the same monster right where the first one had come from. And Danny had no idea how he could help out. He didn’t know if his thermos would work for such huge monsters considering the fact that he already had several hollows and the Box Ghost stuffed in it.

Danny slowed down as he approached Ichigo, coming to a stop right behind him. “How can I help?”

Ichigo’s head snapped around in surprise, eyes wide. “What are you doing here?” he hissed.

“Helping!” Danny said shortly, nodding sharply to the Gillian. “That’s way too many for you to deal with.”

“I had it handled,” Ichigo snapped, whipping his giant sword around and hitting another Gillian in the mask with the same attack as before.

“Oh yeah. Let’s take ’em down one by one and hope they don’t attack us in force,” Danny said sarcastically.

“I don’t see you doing anything,” Ichigo said, giving him an unimpressed look.

Danny returned it, narrowing his eyes as he spun an ecto-ball into life above his palm. He waited until it was the size of a baseball before throwing it into a Gillian’s face. It splashed relatively harmlessly against the mask, leaving only a faint black mark.

“Ah.” Danny was all too aware of Ichigo’s completely unimpressed stare boring into the side of his head. “I should probably put a bit more power into that.”

“You do that.” Ichigo hefted his sword up defensively, fingers tightening around the hilt. His frame tensed, and he opened his mouth, only to skid backwards when a powerful gust of wind erupted from the lead Gillian’s mouth; a deafening roar accompanied it.

Danny shuddered, cringing reflexively; the thermos strapped to his back bumped into his shoulder blade.

A large bony hand stretched out of nowhere, curling around the edges of the rip in the sky and slowly pulling it open like one would a curtain. Another bony nose stuck out from the rip, large grinning teeth appearing scant seconds later. This Gillian had its beady eyes directly on Danny, and it opened its mouth slightly, a purple tongue flashing into view.

Putting his hands together, Danny fired a large ecto-blast right into it, ducking his head slightly at the backwash of power.

He looked up a moment later in time to see the Gillian swallow his attack whole, subsequently jerking back and screaming in pain. The sound shattered the air, almost causing physical vibrations.

“Jesus,” Ichigo breathed from next to Danny.

That was all he could say, though, since at that moment a large bony hand – quick as lightning – flashed out from the hole, slapping him down without warning. Danny felt the breeze of the action brush by him before he could react, blinking in stunned surprise.

“Ichigo!” Danny was torn between wanting to go after Ichigo and dealing with the Gillian. His decision was made when that same hand grabbed him, plucking him from the air like one would a toy. Danny gasped in surprise, arms pinned to his side, head craning back in horror as he looked up at the looming mask.

The Gillian grinned down at him, seemingly pleased at its prize.

“Yeah, I don’t think so, buddy.” Danny turned intangible, slipping backwards through the hand. He took hold of the thermos, unscrewing the cap and activating the suction power. The light grabbed hold of the Gillian’s hand first, sucking it right in. Danny fed the thermos more power, giving it a boost as it slowly sucked in the rest of the Gillian.

He capped it a moment later. “One down, so many more to go,” he muttered, looking back at the hole. The other Gillian seemed warier now that they had seen their comrade disappear so suddenly.

“I hope that thing holds,” Ichigo’s voice sounded suddenly.

Danny almost jumped, drawing to the side slightly in shock. “You’re all right?”

“Yep.” Ichigo didn’t look hurt beyond some minor scrapes and a smear of dust on his cheek. “I’ve had worse.”

“Okay, that’s  _great_.” Danny tightened his grip on the thermos. “So how are we dealing with them? Is there any way to close that?”

“No one tells me anything,” Ichigo said, a faint whine under the words. “But something this big is going to set off alarms in Soul Society. We just need to hold them back.”

“So just wait for the cavalry to arrive, and prey it doesn’t happen before we’re lunch,” Danny said.

“Sounds about right,” Ichigo confirmed.

There was a hissing sound from the hole, and Danny and Ichigo both looked over in vague alarm as the Gillian began to push their faces together, mouths open and red balls of light flickering into existence in them.

“Kuso!” Ichigo took a step back. “They’re making a giant cero!”

“A giant  _what_?”

“That big ball of light? Not a good thing! If that hits, we’re vaporized!”

Danny’s breath hitched in surprise, and he glanced down at the unsuspecting town below him. “What about them?”

“It’s not gonna matter if we don’t do something about it now,” Ichigo snapped. He braced himself, took a deep breath, and disappeared in a black blur, appearing again much closer to the hole. He swung his gigantic sword forward in a downward chopping motion, screaming out a “ _Getsuga tenshou_!”

The attack went straight for the cero in the midst of the Gillian, flying by a Gillian that was too slow to block it. The crescent arc of energy dug into the cero, light flaring out from the edges as it pushed into the Gillian’s attack.

“Jeez,” Danny breathed, eyes widening. Then he had to shut them tight as there was a bright flare of light from the two attacks colliding, the flare nearly blinding in its intensity.

When Danny felt it safe to open his eyes again, he did so cautiously, blinking in surprise when he saw that three of the Gillian were slowly dissipating into black dust particles, and the others were rearing back with visible gashes in their bodies.

Ichigo possessed  _that_  kind of power? It was nuts! Danny took a breath, let it out, and took another breath, his hand tightening on the thermos.

He managed a smile for when Ichigo looked back at him, but it turned into a perplexed “What?” when Ichigo’s eyes widened in alarm and he started gesturing frantically to something behind Danny.

Thinking he had better check this out, Danny whirled around. He briefly caught sight of another hole in frigging space that had opened right behind him before something big hit him in the head and slapped him down to the streets.

He hit the top of a car with a loud crash, crushing it in half and setting the car alarms off for two pitiful wails before it spluttered out with a groan.

Danny groaned in pain, rolling over to his back and squinting up at the sky where he could see Ichigo hovering between two holes in space, both of which had Gillian peeking out of them.

Oh great.

* * *

Danny and Ichigo hadn’t come back from their fight. And Sam didn’t know what was going on. The only thing she could see was Danny, and he occasionally hurled green ecto-balls at a spot in the sky, which was when those attacks disappeared from her view.

She couldn’t  _see_. And it pissed her off. Because how was she supposed to help Danny if she couldn’t see what was going on?

Tucker didn’t seem to be any better shape, gnawing on the eraser of his pencil agitatedly and continually glancing out the window to where they could see Danny floating.

It was too bad they didn’t have Ichigo’s friends in this class. They could’ve used the help in knowing what was going on.

Sam and Tucker exchanged worried glances for a brief moment before returning half their attention to the teacher. She hadn’t been pleased with their excuse that their brother was “sick,” but she couldn’t do anything with the fake doctor’s note Uryuu had handed them to give to their teacher. It looked realistic enough, and that was all Sam and Tucker needed.

Taking a shaky breath, Sam ducked her head, squeezing her eyes shut in a prayer.  _Please_  let Danny be all right.

* * *

“Danny!” Ichigo braced himself in the air, looking up in alarm at the second rip that had opened behind Danny.

How was that possible? Menos Grande were not this intelligent! They were grunts that looked ridiculously powerful but were easy in the grand scheme to take care of. They didn’t have the intelligence to break off into two different groups and attack from behind.

And instead of targeting Ichigo, the one with the most reiryoku, they’d attacked Danny, who didn’t have  _any_. There was no way they should be interested in Danny because he shouldn’t even pop up on their radar. But they’d been targeting Danny from the get-go; Ichigo had seen exactly where their beady little eyes focused, and he’d hoped that he’d been imagining it, but apparently not.

Ichigo took a breath, released it slowly through his mouth, and gripped his zanpakutou tightly. He narrowed his eyes at the Menos Grande responsible for smacking Danny down into the street. There was only one in that hole, so all Ichigo had to do was…

“ _Getsuga tenshou_!” Zangetsu’s attack hurtled through the air, nailing the hollow directly in the mask and shattering it.

Satisfied that that hollow wouldn’t be a problem anymore, Ichigo returned his attention to the larger problem at hand: the bunch of Menos Grande crowding together at the original hole in space. He could feel the other hole close in on itself without the energy of the hollow to keep it open and hoped that he could fend the Menos Grande off long enough for Soul Society to get here and help him.

He also hoped Danny could take a message and stay out of it, but that was probably hoping for too much.

Ichigo disappeared in a blur of shunpo, appeared again above the Menos Grande, and angled a large  _getsuga tenshou_  directly down into their masks.

It hit two of the closer ones, but the others reared back before they could be injured from the backlash of energy Ichigo had pushed into the attack.

Ichigo growled, prepared himself for yet another attack, and then almost tripped over himself when he heard Toushirou’s voice bark out a quick, “Kurosaki!”

He dropped Zangetsu to his side, looking down hopefully to see Toushirou and Byakuya standing there. Oh thank Kami, two taichou?

“Toushirou! Byakuya!” Ichigo dropped down to their level. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you two. You took your sweet time getting here!”

“There were preparations to be made,” Toushirou snapped.

“Yeah, sure.” Ichigo brushed that aside. “Can you close the rip?”

“We don’t have the capabilities to do so,” Toushirou answered.

“You…don’t?” Ichigo gaped in dismay for all of a moment before recovering and pressing the heel of his palm into his eye. “Oh great.”

“What?” Byakuya didn’t seem pleased at Ichigo’s reaction.

“These Menos Grande are different,” Ichigo said, dropping his hand. “I just had another break off from the group and approach from behind. They…they’re after Fantomu,” he admitted grudgingly.

“He was here?” Toushirou demanded, head snapping to Ichigo.

“Yeah.” Ichigo couldn’t resist a look down. “But, uh…he got smacked down to the street.”

And hopefully Danny would have the sense to stay down there—

“Hey, I’m back!”

Or not.

Ichigo barely resisted the urge to groan aloud, but he did turn to level Danny with a glare that the other shied away from.

That was when Danny apparently noticed the presence of the two other shinigami. “Oh. Uh…hi?”

Now Ichigo did sigh. If he managed to get Danny out of this without landing his ass in the fire, then they were going to have a long talk about something called situational awareness and staying out of fights that were above his pay grade.

Byakuya and Toushirou gave Danny a look, gave Ichigo a look that told him he had better keep an eye on the ghost or he’d been in trouble, and then they turned their attention to the Menos Grande still milling around.

“Souten ni zase, Hyourinmaru.” Toushirou unsheathed his zanpakutou, a long chain with a blade at the end of it expanding from the hilt. Water molecules condensed into ice around Toushirou, forming an elongated ice dragon that curled around Toushirou.

“Chire, Senbonzakura,” Byakuya intoned, holding the blade of his zanpakutou straight up in the air as it disintegrated from the top down into hundreds of tiny pink blades.

Ichigo backed up against Danny, placing a hand on the other’s chest to warn him off.

Two high-level taichou apparently had this handled. And Ichigo was going to sit back for now and see if he could manage to get Danny out of this mess.

It didn’t take much from the two taichou. A few attacks had the Menos Grande shying away from the hole and back into their world. And one reached out, closing the rip behind it as it withdrew.

Within moments there was nothing left of the fight that had just occurred but for a smashed car on the street. And Ichigo was still frantically searching for anything that would get Danny out of this predicament.

“Perfect,” Toushirou said with satisfaction. He then turned to face Danny, who jerked back slightly at the sight of the ice dragon curled around the small body.

“Really, Toushirou?” Ichigo asked, trying to buy time.

“What?” Toushirou gave him an unimpressed glance. He returned his focus to Danny. “You, Fantomu,  _are_  going to come in with us this time. You will not leave.”

Danny threw up his hands. “I don’t  _want_  to!”

“You don’t have a choice,” Byakuya said. “If not us, then more forces will be sent to the living world after you, thus putting your friends at risk.” He raised an eyebrow. “You do not wish that, do you?”

“Hey, that’s enough,” Ichigo cut in, stretching out a protective arm in front of Danny. “You’re frightening him.” He inserted a faint pleading note in his voice. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Toushirou said. “He’s an unknown, and we can’t have unknowns wandering around in the living world.” He gave Ichigo a scrutinizing look. “And you’re coming in with us as well.”

Ichigo blanched. “But I can’t! I’ve got things to do here!”

“That didn’t stop you before,” Toushirou said bluntly, referring to the time Ichigo had led an attack on Soul Society to rescue Rukia.

“That was summer break!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Toushirou said. “You’re a shinigami, Kurosaki. That puts you under Soul Society’s authority. And we’re pulling you in for associating with the being known as Fantomu.”

Ichigo thought about objecting. He thought about pointing out that he  _didn’t_  fall under Soul Society’s laws because he wasn’t  _really_  a shinigami; he was still human. His shinigami duties were just a hobby.

But he shouldn’t. Because leaving Danny to that would be unforgiveable. And by accompanying Danny, at least he could make sure the kid was safe. He could figure out a way to get Danny out before the shinigami did something terrible.

“Fine.” He made sure to sound as disgruntled as possible, seating Zangetsu back in his place.

Danny shot Ichigo a worried look, which Ichigo tried to return with a subtle shake of his head. He wasn’t sure if Danny got the message, but at least the other didn’t try to run.

Ichigo could figure this out. He needed to.

* * *

There was a short period of time during which the hapless shinigami simply hacked away at the knights and managed to do nothing other than knock various limbs askew and anger the knights.

When the Fright Knight deemed the shinigami frightened enough, he had most of the knights hold off. Then, voice deep, he asked, “Where is my sword?”

The shinigami was ashen, hands trembling around the hilt of his sword. “I-I don’t know,” he stammered.

“I don’t believe you,” the Fright Knight said. “I can sense the presence of my Soul Shredder in this building. Where have you hidden it?”

The shinigami didn’t seem keen on answering the question. “ _Soul Shredder_?” His voice had gone weak with shock. “What are you doing with a dangerous zanpakutou like that?”

“It is not a zanpaktoo,” the Fright Knight scoffed, folding his arms. “It is a sword.”

The shinigami looked blank for a moment. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“What gave that away?” the Fright Knight said, unimpressed. He would’ve thought it’d be obvious.

The shinigami chuckled nervously. “About that sword…would you take wooden replicas?”

The Fright Knight narrowed his eyes, his aura turning menacing. “Do I look like a child to you?” He gestured to a knight with a particularly large mace. “Go! Eliminate this obnoxious nuisance!”

“Wait! Can’t we talk this out?”

The Fright Knight said nothing, simply standing back as the knight he’d pointed out stepped closer to the trembling shinigami.

The shinigami took a step back. “Please!”

“I have tried to settle this peacefully,” the Fright Knight said. “You would not listen. The time for words is past. I will leave you here in search of my Soul Shredder.”

“Fine!” The shinigami gestured broadly with his sword, the green light of the knights gleaming off the blade. “I’ll beat your knight!”

“The day you beat a servant of mine is the day I will hang up my sword.”

“Then I’ll make that happen!” the shinigami declared brashly, leaping towards the knight. They immediately whirled into a full-on anime-style brawl complete with a giant dust cloud and various limbs poking out.

The Fright Knight observed this strange spectacle for a moment before brushing it off. “Foolish ghost.”

He turned, fully intending on leaving in search of his sword, but there was a sudden air pressure in the hall, freezing his limbs.

A thunderous voice erupted, “STOP!”

The brawl behind the Fright Knight did, revealing a torn up shinigami and a battered knight missing part of his arm and a shoulder brace. The shinigami was lying on top of the knight and trying to strangle him, although he was having trouble due to the armor. The sword and mace lay forgotten a few feet away.

“Stop this at once!” the voice repeated, the air pressure lightening slightly.

The Fright Knight shook his head once, then looked to see a masked figure in a white robe standing before him. Besides the figure stood a strange alien creature with three eyes.

“Well, well,” the figure said. “What have we here? A ryoka?”

The Fright Knight didn’t let his confusion show. “Who are you?”

“I am the one who should be asking you that question, ryoka,” the masked figure said imperiously.

The Fright Knight narrowed his eyes. “I am the Fright Knight.”

The other being grinned toothily. “I am Kurotsuchi Mayuri, taichou of the twelfth division and head of the Shinigami Research and Development Division. And you are an absolutely  _fascinating_  specimen.”

The Fright Knight folded his arms, glowering. “I am the master of Halloween. Do you really think you can face me?”

The creature next to Kurotsuchi gave a scoff. “Really?”

“I jest not,” the Fright Knight said. “Perhaps you wish for a display of what I am capable of?”

“Certainly,” Kurotsuchi said eagerly. “What can you do, oh master of Halloween? Summon nightmares?”

“And much more than that.” The Fright Knight’s tone promised death. “Where is my sword?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t seen any such swords lately,” Kurotsuchi said. “Unless you count our zanpakutou.”

“I have no zanpaktoo,” the Fright Knight said, sniffing. “I ask for my Soul Shredder.”

The three-eyed creature flinched. “Soul Shredder?”

“What a curious name,” Kurotsuchi commented, not at all perturbed. He turned his head to observe the panting shinigami behind him. “You there. What happened?”

“Taichou, he barged in and I tried to arrest him for trespassing,” the shinigami reported. “I was trying to subdue him when he summoned a legion of knights in search of his sword. I was then engaged by this knight here.” He gave a kick to the knight and then stepped backwards in shock as the head spiraled away from the body, bouncing off a wall to stop abruptly in midair, gleaming brightly. “Gah!”

“Enough of this,” the Fright Knight snapped. “I shall search for my sword myself if you are not willing to answer me.” He held out a hand, a spiraling green ball of energy forming above it. “Prepare to be annihilated.”

“How curious. You said the exact thing I was just about to.” Kurotsuchi drew his sword. “Kakimushire, Ashisogi Jizou.”

The Fright Knight flung the ball at Kurotsuchi just as the other jumped in to attack. An alarm went off, wailing furiously, but neither paid attention to it.

“Taichou!” the shinigami yelled as Kurotsuchi was thrust back with a green beam from the Fright Knight.

“You are a formidable opponent,” Kurotsuchi said, pushing himself off the wall.

“Unsurprising, as you seem exceptionally weak,” the Fright Knight retorted.

The shinigami made a noise in protest, but was otherwise ignored. The knight the shinigami had been beating up was now subdued and tied up with a rope. He lay there quietly, but it was probably due to the fact that his head was lying on the other side of the hallway.

“Oh really?” Kurotsuchi tilted his head to the side, grinning. “Let’s see what you think about my abilities in five minutes.” He held his three-pronged sword out in an attacking position.

“Indeed?” The Fright Knight sounded distinctly unimpressed. “No matter.” He held his hands out, palms facing down. “Observe.”

“You do indeed have a fascinating glowing effect.”

“Not that. This.” The Fright Knight slammed his hands on the stoned floor, letting his energies seep into the floor and spread into the walls. Then he began chanting a spell in the ancient tongue of the Ghost Zone, the words echoing with power.

All those present except for the Fright Knight were almost thrown to the floor an enormous rumbling that had dust falling from the ceiling. There was a distant roaring sound and something that sounded like an enormous crash of thunder.

Once his chanting was finished, the Fright Knight stood, dusting his hands off. He hovered a few feet in the air, glowering down at Kurotsuchi. “You have been warned. Return my Soul Shredder to me or face the consequences.”

He then burst into dozens of black bats, phasing through the walls or ceiling.

He was quite satisfied with what he had done. Above the entirety of this accursed place – where every single being could see it and despair – was an enormous black castle, an ominous omen of what was to come.


End file.
